The End Is Near
by Tierfal
Summary: A horrible day gets a bit bet - er, worse - when Mello discovers that a certain albino boy has disa-Neared. Matt, Mello, L, and Light set out to find him, come hell, high water, or chocolate shortages. Well, maybe not those. Matt/Mello, Light/L.
1. Chocolaty Goodness

_Author's Note: Cocoa Puffs are a registered trademark of General Mills and whatnot. And it's actually spelled "chocolaty." Weird but true._

_Mello is zany and bizarre and possibly on crack. Or maybe that's me. Oh, yeah. Huh…_

_The precise circumstances of the AU will explain themselves in the relatively near (geddit??) future, so hold out for them. ;) Additionally, I've fudged the timeline a little to allow for Mello and Matt to be older, and the plot starts moving faster __(er, slightly__…__) __right around Chapter Ten… because that's when Eltea and I started discussing, at some ungodly hour of the morning, how the thing could do to HAVE a plot. XD_

_Per my obsessiveness, the fic is entirely written, and I'll be updating every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, barring natural disasters and intense emotional breakdowns. School, however, can't stop me. BRING IT ON.  
_

_Finally, Eltea stayed up until _seven-frigging-thirty_ this morning to beta this fic, purely because she loves me, so if you value your life, you'd best recognize._

* * *

I. Chocolaty Goodness

It was shaping up to be an abysmally bad day.

First of all, Mello woke up pretty short of breath due to the fact that his rosary was tangled around his neck. Goggle Boy, smarmy little know-it-all that he was, was always assuring him that this precise contingency would become a reality, and Mello hated _I-told-you-so_s more than just about anything in the world—even _I-told-you-so_s that hadn't yet been articulated. They got under his skin like those nasty bugs that would lay eggs there such that when the larvae hatched, you'd get maggots crawling out of these festering sores on your arms, and…

Another thing he hated was thinking about nasty-ass bugs first thing in the morning.

At least, he consoled himself as he trudged down the stairs, there would be Cocoa Puffs—glorious, glorious Cocoa Puffs. The breakfast of champions. Or of chocoholics. Something like that. The point was, there would be a huge, virtually-overflowing bowl of cereal that, though it was slightly overbearing and bordered on artificially-sweet-tasting, would be brimming with chocolaty goodness.

When he arrived in the kitchen, the coveted brown box stood proudly on the countertop, white letters blazoned cheerfully across its width. Mood lifting, a spring weaseling its way into his step, Mello hastened over to the cabinet to gather a bowl and a spoon, the tools with which a man could dig deeply into the gold (or, rather, chocolate) mine of pure and unmitigated delectability, of gastronomical _ecstasy_, that was Cocoa Puffs.

Chocolate really was the only way to start the day.

In a single smooth motion, Mello snatched the cereal box and tilted it towards his bowl with a flourish.

A considerable quantity of Cocoa Puff dust hissed into his bowl, which accordingly wheezed up a small chocolate mushroom cloud.

Mello's first thought was, _Chocolate mushrooms… Could be promising…_

His second thought was, _GOD DAMN IT!_

Shoulders slumped, head hung, posture pathetic, Mello plodded to the sink to pour out his travesty of a full and complete breakfast. He slouched even lower on his way back out of the room, and that was when he saw the plain white puzzle piece lying like a spot of spilt milk on the linoleum.

Curiously, his posture improving precipitously as he forgot to sulk, Mello moved over and bent to retrieve it. He turned the tiny, cardboard-backed piece over in his hands. As he'd suspected, it was from one of Near's puzzles, presumably the blank or almost-blank specimens that the White-Haired Wonder favored.

Mello looked at the little piece where it sat guilelessly in the center of his palm. He almost expected it to sprout eyes and blink up at him innocently, though, thank higher power of choice, it refrained.

Animated puzzle pieces aside, Near would _never_ leave a part of a toy, however small and forgettable, lying around—and that meant that something somewhere had gone awry.

Mello closed his fingers around the puzzle piece, pursed his lips, and went to find Matt.

Goggle Fiend was tapping madly away at one of his handheld video game devices, muttering to himself about "stupid frigging Gobbos, getting captured all the time."

"What'cha playin'?" Mello inquired eloquently.

A great deal of commotion ensued as Matt sought a suitable hiding place for the game, looked around desperately to no avail, and then proceeded to sit upon his console.

"Something violent," he answered, voice slightly strained. "Something _so_ violent, you shouldn't even look at it, because the violence will scar you for life. What are you doing here?"

"Near is mysteriously absent," Mello reported dutifully. "Ergo we need to go find L and recruit his help in saving Near from his predicament, which is probably his own stupid fault, since somebody in a sketchy black van probably offered him free robots or something."

Matt frowned. "Isn't L kind of busy saving the world?"

"The world can wait," Mello retorted. "This is _Near_ we're talking about. Sweet, defenseless Near, scared and alone…"

"He's actually a little bit abrasive," Matt remarked. "And isn't he testing for his second-degree black belt next week?"

Mello sighed. "Look, do you want to get out of this Cocoa-Puff-deficient establishment and go on a harrowing adventure, or not?"

"There's no Cocoa Puffs?" Matt's eyes were wide. "Yeah, let's get the hell on the _road_."

—

Light blew on his coffee. He sipped it. The he turned the page of the newspaper, scanned a few comics that fell five feet and seven and a half inches short of amusing, turned the page again, and had a few minor revelations about prospective life issues, courtesy of a fairly bland advice columnist.

If, by some grave oversight, such as a sociopathic editor, Light Yagami had been permitted to write an advice column, things would have gone rather differently.

_Dear Bright,_

_I love my boyfriend of twelve years, but he just doesn't want to commit. When I say the word 'marriage,' he freaks out. What should I do?_

_Signed, Loves Him; Wants a Ring_

Light considered his response.

_Dear LHWR, which is remarkably close to 'loser,'_

_Twelve YEARS? Are you KIDDING? Please tell me this is a prank. Please. My faith in humanity is fragile enough as it is. And really, is the ring all you're after? What are you, Gollum? Go to the jewelry store, get yourself something nice, and dump the idiot. Honestly._

_Love, Bright_

He was still smirking to himself, newspaper ink bleeding into his fingertips, when Ryuzaki, sitting in a swivel chair at the length of the chain to gaze up at the computer screens, said something extremely worrying:

"Uh oh."

Light joined him, glancing at the monitors in turn. "What?"

Ryuzaki pointed a pale finger at the live surveillance footage. Outside the door to the hotel were two boys—a redhead wearing goggles and a striped shirt, and a blond wearing leather. The latter looked to be attempting to begin an altercation with the doorman.

"What do th…" Something clicked in Light's head. "You know them, don't you."

It wasn't a question—kid who thought he was a pilot, accompanied by one with a leather fetish and a temper? They had "Ryuzaki's Friends" written all over them in blinding neon and flashing lights.

"It must be very important," Ryuzaki mused. "They wouldn't risk being seen if it wasn't."

"Good point," Light noted. "No one would be able to forget those two if they _tried_."

Ryuzaki slid off of his chair and slouched off towards the door, Light perforce in tow. "They are," he agreed, "a bit unusual."

If that wasn't the pot complimenting the kettle's complexion, Light didn't know what was.

When the newcomers caught sight of Ryuzaki around the doorman's steadfast shoulders, their faces lit up like Christmas trees. With a faint pang, Light wished absently that someone would look at him that way, with that sort of boundless affection, with an admiration that verged on worship.

Other than Misa, that was. _Ehhh_. She was a nice enough girl, all things considered; she was just… totally insane.

In the meantime, the boys, who looked to be a little less than twenty, were beaming at Ryuzaki, who ushered them first into the hotel lobby and thence into one of the private conference rooms.

"What do we get to call you this time?" the blond asked eagerly.

"Today," the object of the sudden fascination replied levelly, "it's Ryuzaki."

"Ryuzaki," both boys repeated in unison, their eyes shining.

Light blinked at the blond. "Pardon me, but—are you actually wearing _leather pants_?"

Blondie scowled. "What's your point?" he countered.

Light shrugged. "Nothing, I've just never seen anyone _actually_ wear leather pants before."

"I've seen _tons_ of people wear leather pants," Blondie shot back.

Cautiously, Light held his hands up for peace. "Okay, I believe you." As he moved, the handcuff around his left wrist glinted dramatically, and the chain jingled.

Both boys' mouths and eyes went into _O_s in impressive unison.

"I suspect Light of being Kira," Ryuzaki explained idly. He smiled. "This way, I can keep an eye on him. Light-kun, Mello and Matt. Matt and Mello, Light Yagami."

"Hullo," the boys murmured, again in synchronism, still without taking their eyes from the handcuff.

"He's got another arm, you know," Light remarked. "You two could trade off."

Ryuzaki looked horrified. Quickly, he interjected, "Why are you here? Watari didn't say you were coming."

Blon—Mello managed to shake off his handcuff envy and blink up at his idol. Inexplicably, he held out a white puzzle piece. "We think Near's been kidnapped," he announced.

Light wasn't sure how a measure of distance could be abducted. Then again, he wasn't sure why an emotion was wearing leather pants, either.

…not that he could talk.

Ryuzaki's brow furrowed, and his thumb went to his lip.

"Well, Mello thinks so," Matt corrected pleasantly. "I'm just along for the ride."

"It's going to be a strange one," Ryuzaki muttered.

As soon as they got back to the control room, Light was going to print him out an _Understatement of the Year_ award.

"It's shaping up to be pretty _puzzling_," Matt agreed cheerfully.

They all stared at him.

Light swallowed, hand twitching. "Ryuzaki," he asked slowly, "can I hit him, or is that your job?"

"No one," Ryuzaki said firmly, "will be hitting anyone."

Light wondered how long _that_ was going to hold out.


	2. Death Grip

_Author's Note: They're presumably speaking English, but not having L use honorifics would just sound _weird_, so I'm afraid we'll all just have to cope. XD_

* * *

II. Death Grip

Matt and Mello were getting carried away. Light was getting tempted to carry _them_ away. And then to dump them into a sewer somewhere.

"So you're chained together _all the time_?"

"So you take _showers _together?"

"So you _sleep_ together?"

"Haha, they totally do!"

"And they're into _bondage_!"

"Kinky!"

"You think _we_ can get a chain?"

"We could _clothesline_ people!"

"Are you kidding? We could _strangle_ people!"

"Matt-kun and Mello-kun," Ryuzaki cut in, "how did you come to be in Japan?"

"We flew in," Mello answered airily.

Ryuzaki frowned. "How did you afford that?"

"We didn't," Matt replied eagerly. "I hacked into Wam—er, Watari's computer, and we jacked some of his Frequent Flier miles."

The thumb rose to Ryuzaki's lips again. "I presume that is how you found this location," he noted.

Matt and Mello beamed like small, completely psychotic suns.

"And now that you're in Japan," Ryuzaki continued, raising his eyebrows, "we all must go directly back to England in order to find Near."

Instead of looking chagrined, Matt and Mello merely nodded enthusiastically.

Ryuzaki shuffled over to the bed and drew a suitcase from beneath it. "Will you hand me the box of candy, Light-kun?"

The specification "of candy" narrowed it down to half the boxes stacked neatly by the closet. Well, three-quarters.

"Which?" Light asked.

"The white one the size of a small dog, please."

Light hefted it and brought it over. They were probably going to need it.

x

All too soon, both members of the Kira Crusader Crew were packed and ready.

"To the airport, then," Ryuzaki announced.

Mello snatched the car keys off of the countertop, jingling them merrily. "I'll drive!" he sang.

As they followed, suitcases in tow, Light looked worriedly to Ryuzaki. "Should I be concerned?" he inquired cautiously.

"Concerned, Light-kun?" Ryuzaki replied absently. "No."

Light drew in a breath for sigh of relief.

"You should be terrified."

x

During the sparing moments in which he wasn't fearing for his life too avidly to do anything other than pray, Light composed another entry for his advice column. It was the only course of action—other than screaming like a little girl on helium, anyway—that he thought might permit him to retain his sanity.

_Dear Bright,_

_I love my husband, but he's the craziest driver I've ever seen. It's gotten to the point that I'm worried about my safety and that of my children. What should I do?_

_Signed, Loves Him, But Terrified_

_Dear LHBT,_

_DIVORCE HIM. RUN. AVOID MAJOR HIGHWAYS. RUN!!_

_Love, Bright_

When at last Mello swerved into a space in the blissfully desolate parking lot, Light attempted, with some difficulty, to pry his hands from where he'd clenched them around the armrests in what had to be called a death grip. It was nothing short of a miracle that his knuckles, white as they were, hadn't popped right out of his fingers and rocketed upwards towards the roof of the car.

Then again, he would have given all of his knuckles to have this trauma erased from his life and memory.

"Here we are," Mello chirped.

There was a pause. Matt peeled his hands from over his eyes.

"Am I dead?" he asked weakly.

"Not yet," Mello replied cheerfully. "Not by my doing, anyway."

Matt considered, looking woozy. "Do you have a bag?"

"A what?" Mello prompted.

"A bag," Matt repeated.

"What kind of bag?"

"The airtight kind. So I can throw up in it."

Mello clapped his cohort heartily on the shoulder. "Walk it off, Champ," he recommended, hopping out of the car and stretching luxuriously.

Ryuzaki turned to Light.

"I hope that didn't _permanently_ traumatize you, Light-kun," he remarked, wincing.

Light tried to say "I think I'll be okay in about a week," but what came out was a forlorn-sounding "_Nng_."

"Next time, Light-kun," Ryuzaki promised, unfolding from his seat and climbing out, "I will drive."

Light's brain filled in an automated response. "You can drive?"

Ryuzaki spared an enigmatic smile over one hunched shoulder. "I can do anything," he said.

Light didn't doubt it. The man could pilot a helicopter, after all. Light wouldn't be surprised if he could jump up and fly.

"Yeah," Mello called over his shoulder, Matt staggering along beside him. "Only you drive like an old lady."

"But I drive like a safe old lady, Mello-kun," Ryuzaki replied calmly. "Rather than like a lead-footed young man living on borrowed time."

—

Matt thumbed desperately at the rightmost button.

"Frigging—Mudkip—"

He realized he'd said that aloud and glanced around to see if anyone had heard him, but the pudgy businessman in the window seat had fallen asleep with his mouth open, the better to emanate faint, whistling snores, and Mello was leaning out over the aisle to talk to L on the other side.

"I think we should look for other puzzle pieces," he was saying. "It's like Near's version of a breadcrumb trail, right? So we follow the pieces and find him."

The Yagami kid raised an eyebrow pointedly. "Are you suggesting that we should comb the entirety of Great Britain for a couple of _puzzle pieces_? That's the only lead you've got?"

Matt had an amusing mental image of Yagami-Kid down on his knees in a field of grass, parting the blades with a hairbrush and searching.

"I'm _suggesting_," Mello snapped back, "that you should shut your fat face and let me talk to L."

"Yer _mom_ has a fat—"

"Children," L reprimanded calmly.

"I am _not_—" Light and Mello started to protest in unison.

"Tell that to all of the unfortunate people trapped on this plane with you," L remarked idly. He put a thumb to his lip, and they all went quiet in anticipation of what he would say next. L was like that and always had been. "Now, I think we should go to the orphanage first and see if we can turn up any other evidence. I believe you're right, Mello-kun, in assuming that Near would not leave a puzzle piece there for no reason, and it is therein the most logical place to begin."

Mello settled in his seat, pleased with himself now.

L set his long fingers into a steeple and considered them.

Light was frowning. Bit of a sour character, that Yagami-Kid. L needed to force-feed him candy. Or humility. Or a life.

"Who exactly is this 'Near' we keep talking about?" Light wanted to know. "And why's he so important?"

L turned his level gaze on his handcuff-mate. "Near," he explained, "is one of the boys at Wammy's House, an orphanage Watari founded for gifted children. Near, Mello, and Matt are the brightest three wards."

"Actually, Roger's trying to kick us out," Mello cut in, "'cause we're legal and all."

L blinked at him. "Then he evidently has not yet discovered that it is impossible to coerce the pair of you into anything into which you do not desire to be coerced." He attended Light again. "In the event that something were to happen to me," he noted, "Near would essentially be the last hope for mankind."

Mello pouted. "What about me?"

"God _forbid_ mankind's last hope dress in lace-up leather pants," Light muttered. It sounded like a plea more than anything else.

"I heard that!" Mello growled.

L put his hands up for peace, a slightly harried expression crossing his face. "Mello-kun," he said soothingly, "you operate differently than Near. In the ice cream sundae of the world, he is a hand, and you are a spoon."

Matt snickered and elbowed Mello. "That means Near's grabbing your butt," he interpreted sagely.

"_What_?" Mello yelped.

Even Yagami-Kid had to laugh.

L applied his palm to his forehead. "That is not even remotely what I meant with my extremely poor analogy, Matt-kun."

It was only then that Matt noticed how bewildered the bespectacled young woman sitting on Light's other side looked.

He caught her eye and waved.

—

L followed Matt's line of sight. The neatly-dressed lady in the seat by the window was staring at them with wide eyes further magnified by her square tortoise-shell glasses, and she clung to her briefcase as if it was a rather oddly-shaped life preserver. Tentatively, with the air of one baiting a wild animal, she returned Matt's wave.

L supposed it was no small wonder she was mortified. Matt was peering through his goggles even in the dim ambient light of the plane cabin, Mello sported the usual shining leather ("flamboyant with just a pinch of prostitute," as L had once heard it described), and Light, conservative as he was compared to such company, seemed strange simply by association.

And then there was L himself, of course, his battered sneakers on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest, his toes over the edge of the airplane seat, his hair jutting out somewhere into the periphery of Light's personal bubble. Come to think of it, their being chained together—he and the clean-cut, respectable-looking citizen that was Light Yagami—probably reeked of one of those officer-and-convict arrangements.

L wanted to assure their unlucky companion that her seat-mates were perfectly harmless, but she looked like she might go very abruptly into cardiac arrest if he addressed her directly.

Not that he could blame her, or anything, but he would hate to stir the nest of fire-ants that was the Kira business at a time like this.

It might also prove somewhat difficult to explain to airport security. Perhaps even more difficult than explaining the chain had been.

Before he could make a decision either way, a stewardess approached, offering them an impressively unperturbed smile.

"Peanuts, sir?" she asked L, proffering a small packet kindly.

L wrinkled his nose, shaking his head apologetically. "Do you have anything else?" he inquired.

"Allergic to nuts?" the stewardess extrapolated, giving him an understanding smile and a nod. She retrieved a different package from her apron. "Pretzels, perhaps?"

Salty things. All they had was _salty things_…

"No, thank you," L mumbled miserably.

When the stewardess had served the others and moved along, Mello hissed across the aisle.

"Psst, L—"

L glanced over.

Mello reached into his carryon and retrieved no less than eight bars of chocolate. He tossed two to L.

This trip, L reflected, munching happily, might just be survivable after all.


	3. Merrie Olde Englande

_Author's Note: Being American, I have no right to make such slanderous accusations as I do. But hey, all's fair in love, war, and fanfiction, right?_

…_please don't sic the Queen on me. o_o_

_Adding this chapter pushes my total uploaded words on this site over 300,000. O_o I CAN HAZ LIFE PLZ?  
_

* * *

III. Merrie Olde Englande

After the captain drawled about preparing for landing, a flight attendant sashayed down the aisle, attention roving back and forth, offering nods and smiles with reckless abandon.

Light frowned. Didn't the woman know what a nod and a smile could _do_? How many _wars_ had begun with a nod and a smile? How many people had _died_…?

Well. Admittedly not many. But there was an _Iliad_ reference to be made here.

"Please put your seat in the full-upright position, ma'am… Thank you…"

Then, of course, she reached Ryuzaki.

"Sir… Could you sit normally, please?"

Ryuzaki curled his toes more tightly around the edge of the seat almost protectively, his hands on his knees, and blinked innocently up at her.

Light suddenly found himself overflowing with the desire to foil her nodding-and-smiling normalcy in favor of the wonderful weirdness people like Ryuzaki introduced on a daily, hourly, and moment-ly basis.

"Do you know who you're talking to?" he inquired, keeping his voice low so that not _too_ many people would turn around—just enough to make his victim feel extremely awkward.

The stewardess in question looked up at him unconcernedly. "Sir, I'm afraid it's policy that—"

"This is the _grand duke_ of _Luxembourg_," Light whispered audibly. "And he _always_ sits this way. The highest officials in Japan have no issue with it, and I'm sure your superiors wouldn't, either."

Ryuzaki glanced at him, surprised now. "Light-kun—"

"Sir," Light replied, gently but insistently, "your comfort is the most important thing." He glanced up at the flight attendant and rattled the chain linking him to Ryuzaki meaningfully. "I'm his bodyguard. If you keep harassing my client, I may be forced to tase you."

The poor stewardess stared at him for a moment before beating a hasty retreat.

Ryuzaki blinked at Light. "Light-kun," he murmured, "I… don't… believe… that that was entirely necessary."

No one had to say _You're an asshole_, as it was efficiently implied.

Light affixed his attention to the magazine in the seatback pocket before him—the one that sold remarkably pointless things at frighteningly exorbitant prices—in the hopes that his travel companions might not notice the way his face was heating up.

"I just hate it when people push you around," he muttered. "It drives me crazy. Like they're not happy with what you are, and they're trying to make you into something you're not."

God, he sounded gushy. Must have been those advice columnist instincts, rearing their collective ugly head again.

Ryuzaki tilted his head in that terribly puppyish way that he did. "I…" he said. He blinked. "…thank you." He fidgeted and glanced, somewhat curiously, at his own copy of the extraordinarily presumptuous magazine. "Though I am accustomed to having people tell me how to behave, and my self-esteem seems, as far as I can tell, to be largely intact."

Light didn't respond. There wasn't really anything to say to that, and he'd probably be better off if he learned how to keep his mouth shut once in a lunar eclipse of a blue moon.

Mello was looking at him interestedly. "Wow," the leather aficionado remarked. "I thought _I_ was a prick."

Even as he moved to rip a leather-rimmed throat out, Light found Ryuzaki's arm in the way as the world's greatest detective applied his incredible deducting skills to the problem of predicting his companion.

"Please don't make any death threats," Ryuzaki requested. "I should hate to be mistaken for terrorists so early in our trip."

"Yeah," Matt conceded from across the aisle. "You've at least got to _earn_ it first."

In retrospect, it was unfortunate that that Mello kid had such a gift for taking things literally.

—

Matt and Mello didn't have anything but their carryon bags—they'd hardly had time to bring _themselves_ to Japan, let alone lug along a whole lot of unneeded crap—but L and Light had a suitcase each that had to be retrieved from the baggage claim.

"Welcome," Mello was telling Yagami-Kid, "to merrie olde Englande: home of Shakespeare, Stonehenge, the Beatles, and not Madonna, whatever the hell she says." Having returned home, Mello was shamelessly allowing his accent to mass its forces. You could hear them rumbling on the horizon like thunderheads, all war drums and battle cries. "As you can see, even our airports are vastly superior and extraordinarily sophisticated, and tea and crumpets flow freely in the streets."

"That's what I expected," Yagami-Kid responded, perfectly deadpan. "Will I get to meet the Queen?"

"You'll get to meet your _maker_ if you try to talk to the Queen," Mello retorted. "She knows ju-jitsu, and she practices four hours a day, when she's not having scones."

"Well," Yagami-Kid remarked, "since I'm Japanese, I must be quiet, compliant, and hospitable enough to meet her rigorous standards." He considered. "Or a ninja."

"Either way," Mello replied dismissively, "her bodyguards would eat you alive. With their scones. Spread what's left of you like jam."

"No one," L cut in idly, "will be eating Light-kun. At least not on this trip."

"And if anyone did, it'd be you?" Mello prompted, grinning evilly.

L offered a thin, enigmatic smile. "Yes. I have—as I believe they say—_dibs_."

Yagami-Kid looked thoroughly disconcerted as he and his chain-mate progressed over towards the baggage carousel, which was just beginning to spit out the suitcases belonging to the passengers of their flight.

"You know what I've always wanted to do?" Mello inquired reflectively, eyes on the suitcases emerging from the mechanism and sliding onto the carousel proper.

Matt wondered if he should quit while he was ahead. "What?" he prompted warily.

His fears were not unmerited.

Really, if he'd been thinking, he would have realized that Mello had just been sitting on a plane for hours on end, eating a great deal of chocolate as he went. It was stupid of Matt _not_ to think that there would be repercussions in the way of hyperactivity-induced temporary insanity.

"This," Mello answered.

He dashed across the baggage claim, feather-lined coat fluttering behind him, and leapt up onto the luggage carousel, where he planted one foot on some unsuspecting traveler's bag, shaded his eyes with a hand, and gazed pensively off into the distance.

Given Mello's modus operandi—that was, doing absolutely ludicrous things because they were entertaining, conveniently ignoring the fact that they were utterly socially unacceptable—Matt assumed that his goal was to make a complete circuit of the carousel. Unfortunately, airport security had other ideas, and a burly man with a thick moustache and a glinting badge barreled across the open space, leapt into the air, and tackled Mello to the ground before the blond adventurer had made it around the first turn.

"Son of a _bitch_!" Mello howled, which probably didn't help things.

Yagami-Kid stared incredulously, mouth half-open for the British flies to frequent as they would, as security cuffed Mello's hands behind his back and began to manhandle him out of the baggage claim, ignoring his spitting curses and thrashing limbs.

L, of course, knew Mello rather a bit better, which was why his only comment was a resigned "Oh, dear."

Matt looked to his childhood mentor for guidance, as always.

"If you could get our bags," L told him, "that would be wonderful, Matt-kun. Mine is blue, Light-kun's is black, and both have tags written in Japanese. If worst comes to worst, their contents should be quite sufficient to identify their owners."

Matt nodded obligingly, and L started off after Mello and his captors, tugging gently at the slim chain that linked him to Light. Yagami-Kid started, blinked, and jogged obediently after.

Matt hoped, rather futilely, that this wouldn't end up on YouTube within the hour.

x

With the appropriate suitcases sprawled like supplicants before him—one contained a truly striking quantity of pressed white dress shirts; the other a great deal of candy and a small stuffed panda—Matt sat idly against the wall of the baggage claim and half-attended the interrogation taking place on the other side of that wall.

"_For the last time, I am NOT a terrorist, and I do NOT hate Western civilization! For the love of God and the Queen and chocol—see? God! Queen! God save her! British citizen! Can't you stupid clods wrap your three brain-cells—three between the four of you, by the looks of things—around the idea that—_"

Matt sighed and wrestled with the A button, which had taken to sticking a little. Mello was marvelously adept at getting _into_ trouble, but the whole getting _out_ part seemed to be a bit more elusive.

After the better part of an hour had elapsed, the yelling (or Melling, Matt supposed) had quieted a great deal. Another quarter-hour after that, L, Light, and Mello reemerged into the baggage claim, the latter eyeing the door behind him mutinously.

"Now that we've taken care of that," L remarked, "shall we move along?"

Matt hopped up and righted the suitcases. "What'd you tell 'em?" he inquired. He was particularly curious to discover how L had talked Mello's way out of this one after hearing snippets of the blond boy's top-volume rant about grievous injustice, leather prejudice, and unnecessary penalization of those who employed airport equipment for unorthodox purposes. Mello's top volume was a thing to reckon with, but somehow his detainers hadn't seemed overly persuaded.

L paused tactfully. "I mentioned a few friends and made a few phone calls," he noted.

Matt supposed that when one had "friends" in the most significant investigative organizations of just about every country in the world, one's speed-dial spoke volumes.

"Fair enough," he decided. "Guess it's taxicab time again."

It didn't bear thinking about that a blissfully ignorant taxi driver was about to have a boy in stripes, a boy in leather, and two young men who were joined at the wrist pile cheerfully into his cab.

Or perhaps it did bear thinking about. On occasion, Matt somewhat sadistically enjoyed victimizing innocent people in harmless ways. When you were a Wammy kid, of course, it verged on mandatory.


	4. The Top Floor

_Author's Note: I've never been to England. Or Japan. Wanna go sooooo baaaaad. D:  
_

_Strangely lengthy chapter is strangely lengthy._

_I'm always slightly intimidated trying to capture L's voice, given that he's, y'know, a _genius_ and whatnot. Light, at least, shares my propensities for overzealous hygiene and sporadic bouts of panicky perfectionism, but I have trouble with L, and he's such a wonderful character that I'd hate terribly to get him wrong…_

_Anyway… XD Thanks to ". . ." for catching that typo so fast last time! It was shameful. :'(  
_

_I am fond of this chapter even though it was written__… over two months ago, I believe__. XD  
_

* * *

IV. The Top Floor

L watched Light's face flicker ethereally into and out of being, captured and released by the city lights beyond the window as they glided over the dim, tangled paths of the streets. The boy was entranced, and L, being L, absently applied some unspecified portion of his brain to the task of explaining why.

England was old, that much was incontrovertible—but so was Japan, home and resting place of shogun, of emperors, of samurai, and of unnumbered average people like themselves. Britain was the same way, wasn't it?

He supposed that perhaps _this_ oldness, this Roman-tinted, Battle-of-Hastings, sun-never-sets antiquity, rose from a foundation so dissimilar as to be quite distinguishable. Perhaps that was why Light-kun's eyes were so wide and bright, the night reflected back at itself in his awe, as if he was pleading that it see its own unconcerned majesty. Perhaps _this_ oldness transfixed him by virtue of its comparison to the one that he knew.

Then again, L had an extremely developed gift for overanalyzing, so he supposed it was anyone's guess. Maybe Light, like the vast majority of the population, had an affinity for shiny things.

Their hotel was a monstrous one, jutting into the clouded stretches of the sky, looming blankly with windows gleaming as if its sole purpose was intimidation. L handed the cab driver—who was looking at Mello mistrustfully, unsurprising given the boy's talent for unsettling people—the appropriate sum, augmented with a generous tip for not making any comments on the nature of his passengers. Money meant nothing to L Lawliet, and soothing Mello-induced trauma with cash was always a worthwhile undertaking.

Light smiled, still somewhat dazedly, up at the hotel as they progressed towards the lobby, Mello muttering something about bigots who didn't understand a man's need to sheathe himself in leather, Matt making vaguely sympathetic noises beside him.

"This place fits your style, Ryuzaki," Light noted.

The idea of his having 'style' was somewhat laughable, but L chose not to mention that particular detail. He shrugged. "I should hate to arrive at Wammy's so late," he remarked. "Many of the wards are supposed to be sleeping, though of course the odds of their actually _being_ asleep are extraordinarily low. In addition, it seems fairly likely that Roger will be inclined more favorably towards handcuffed detectives and truant teenagers after a good night's sleep."

"A guy'd have to sleep for ten years to be ready for Mello," Light commented in a low voice, grinning with a bit of mischief.

L smiled back. "A post-curse Sleeping Beauty," he replied, "would not be ready for Mello."

Gilt double doors ushered them into the sumptuous yellow warmth of the lobby, where the receptionist was dozing over the ledger. L roused her, ignored her bleary-eyed bewilderment at the comport and composition of her patrons, redeemed his reservation, and paid. He paused. Then he asked if she might be moved to convey a few small requests to room service for the next day's breakfast.

The small encyclopedia of desserts that he listed discomfited her a bit more, as did his best attempt at an earnest and ingratiating smile.

It begged the question—Did he have a weird smile? He supposed he must, given the overarching incongruity of the rest of him. Considering the circumstances of his existence, he probably had the weirdest smile known to man, and that was why people always looked at him with that subtle mix of wariness, incomprehension, and confusion, graced with a bitter Maraschino cherry's-worth of actual fear.

This was one of the many depressing thoughts that had lately been plaguing L Lawliet like a bout of blazing emotional heartburn. He hoped he wasn't losing his touch for insuppressible, unquenchable optimism. The fact that he was doubting his flair for naïveté was, of course, extremely ominous in the first place. Skepticism in logical terms was commendable, but skepticism of the general good nature of the world was a treacherous track to tread, particularly on tender, pale bare feet.

The proverbial mud of that slippery slope felt eerie and portentous and exquisite between his proverbial toes.

The elevator warbled upwards, humming to itself in that way that elevators did, and beeped tinnily as they passed each level in turn.

"Do you always pick the top floor?" Matt inquired.

Regular human beings were genetically endowed with a curious streak approximately a mile wide. Eve's had presumably spanned a mile and a half, and such enterprising thinkers as Newton and Einstein were pushing two.

Mail Jeevas's was four miles across and dwindled towards an unspecified "forever" in the distance ahead.

…maybe it was the stripes.

"Generally, yes," L answered pleasantly. "It feels safer somehow when the ground is very far away, though the fall would undeniably prove fatal."

Matt shrugged striped shoulders. "Makes sense, I guess."

"Also, the most palatial rooms tend to be at the top."

Matt grinned. "That makes a _lot_ of sense." His eyes lit up enough for the difference to be evident even through the goggles. "Though it takes a lot of _cents_."

Light stared at him. "That was so bad it makes me want to test Ryuzaki's fatal fall theory," he said.

"Try it!" Mello suggested brightly. "I can test my world-would-be-better-off-without-you theory."

L sighed.

The combatants were too engaged in their sparring—pointed wits drawn and meticulously honed—to notice, but the gesture was important, both in conveying his resignation and expressing it to himself.

The psychologists had loved to talk about reflexive expression, since they all seemed to be under the impression that L was entrenched in fervent denial of something hulking and terrible that lurked like a shadowy elephant in every room he entered.

L had loved to talk about cheesecake.

He sometimes regretted driving so many therapists to hire their colleagues for the sake of their own sanities, but most of them had deserved it. Particularly the ones who had treated him like some sort of exotic puzzle laid out for their entertainment.

And the ones who hadn't even tried to ply him with cookies.

"…surprised it's not a theory of leather and lacing. Isn't that further up your sketchy, dimly-lit alley?"

"All that's in your alley seems to be moisturizers and hair products, Pretty-Boy. Detect for me—is that a fitted shirt? Tailored to your sculpted, slender physique?"

"Are you _hitting_ on me?"

"Only to keep from _hitting_ you. Lesser of two evils, since Ryuzaki'd get on my case—"

Matt snorted. "On your _case_…" he repeated, amused again.

"That's _disgusting_," Light decided, though it was difficult to discern whether he meant the pun or the quasi-flirtation.

The elevator ejected them onto the appropriate floor, and L and Matt started down the hall, tugging their respective character foils behind them.

"Your _mom_ is disgusting," Mello retorted.

"Your _face_—"

"Gentlemen," L cut in, stifling a yawn. "Please hold tightly to those thoughts until tomorrow morning. You have my express permission to lambaste one another over breakfast, but for now I recommend we patronize the beds I've purchased for the purpose." He swiped his card key and pushed the door open. "Light-kun, if you would?"

Grumbling about sartorially-challenged freaks of nature, Light trudged in.

"Goodnight," L told the two boys in the hall, entrusting Matt with the other room's key. "As we share a wall, please keep the drunken revelry to a minimum."

Matt and Mello heaved a synchronous melodramatic sigh.

"Yes, _Mother_," they conceded dully.

L smiled before remembering that his smile was creepy. "Goodnight," he said again.

Bidding him a fond adieu for the evening—or was it morning by now?—the boys departed.

Light laid his suitcase on the bed, unzipped it, and dug through as if excavating for an ancient culture he thoroughly despised. He paused to rub his face.

"I'm going to take a shower, Ryuzaki," he decided, "if you don't have an outstanding objections."

"I have a few mediocre ones," L replied glibly, "but go ahead. There are some things I should attend to on the computer while you do."

It had long since become a familiar pattern—Light, at the end of the slowly-rusting chain, indulged in his detailed ablutions, and L, back demurely turned, sat by, wiping condensing steam from his laptop's screen at intervals. As painfully awkward as once it had been, L dared to think that, after the months of conditioning (literally for Light's hair and figuratively for the two of them), they had grown fairly accustomed to—dare he say "comfortable with"?—the arrangement.

Outside of the varying degrees of social taboo, L actually rather liked it. There was something quietly intimate (part of him groaned, _Not in the creepy way_) about the calmly candid conversations that rose above the placid pattering of the shower water.

L wanted to smack himself for the double-alliteration offense, but the argument held, mangled as it was.

Light sighed contentedly as the spritzing of the showerhead solidified into a broader stream.

"I hate flying," he declared. "Just sitting still in that cabin full of stuffy, germy air—I mean, I know they circulate it, but it's like having people breathe on you for the duration of your flight."

"Captivity," L murmured in agreement, pulling up one of many databases.

Listening (presumably) to the clack of the keys, Light paused, soap suds (presumably) gurgling down the drain.

"Do you think the trail really went cold?" he asked quietly. "Or have we just missed something that would drop us right back onto it?"

L's eyes flickered over mounds of data, ordered and condensed on the webpage. "The killings have stopped entirely, as far as we can tell," he related equably. "Which leads me to consider the fairly plausible possibility that we cling to the remnants of a closed case less because there are substantial handholds upon it and more because we need something to cling to."

He frowned at the computer screen. He was dreadfully figurative this evening.

Light moved again, water slapping the shower curtain, the chain clinking faintly. He snapped the cap of his shampoo bottle open.

"I guess… it's possible… But what if we just missed something, you know? And if we found it, everything would slot into pl—"

L had made the grievous error of accidentally letting his cursor slide over an ad obsequiously offering him a free ringtone.

He supposed there were worse things with which the vast and boundless gutter of the internet might proposition him.

Then again, as this particular advertisement commenced blasting music out of his speakers the moment he moused over it, some unobtrusive porn might well have been preferable.

"_Strangers—waiting—up and down the boulevard—"_

"Dear God," L managed, fumbling for the _mute_ button.

"Wait," Light interrupted. "I love this song!"

Immediately, and somewhat predictably at this juncture, he commenced singing along.

"_Their shadows—searching—in the ni-i-ight_…"

L glanced towards the shower, unable to help himself. There was a very decorous curtain there anyway.

"_Streetlight—people—living just to find emotion_…_ Hiding—somewhere—in the niiiiiight_…"

Light-kun wouldn't be heading an opera any time in the near future, but the boy could certainly carry a tune.

"Come on, Ryuzaki," Light prompted. "_Everybody_ knows this song."

"I don't believe that I do," L replied, pleased with the deliberately cryptic quality of the statement.

"Tease," Light responded.

L touched a thumb to his lips, which were curving upward despite him. "Light-kun is the one singing about hookups in a smoky room while conspicuously _au naturel_."

Light laughed. "Touché," he conceded.

L smiled, slightly wickedly. "Perhaps once you are clothed again, Light-kun," he noted. "I should hate for this to be awkward."


	5. Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'

_Author's Note: Mello's back. Run to the hills. Run for your lives._

_But first, some fanservice!_

…_I love raisin bran. Don't hate on the raisin bran. Seriously. :P_

_Happy almost-Thanksgiving, Americans! :D And I hope everyone else has an awesome… Thursday, November 27? XD_

* * *

V. Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'

Something unusual happened when Light awoke the next morning. It wasn't that he wasn't wearing a shirt—shirts to sleep was a custom he'd given up early in the chain arrangement; the process was more work than it was worth. It wasn't that the numbers on the digital clock burned his eyes—Light Yagami was secretly an anti-morning person, and always had been. It wasn't even that, by the looks of things, Ryuzaki had gotten at least a little bit of sleep the night before, though that certainly was unusual.

No, it was that, when he stumbled into the bathroom and groggily faced himself in the mirror, Ryuzaki followed and, instead of ignoring said mirror completely, considered himself, from wild black hair to gently pointed chin, pensively with a dash of worry.

"What is it?" Light prompted.

Ryuzaki tilted his head. "Nothing, Light-kun."

Their eyes met in the mirror. Light decided to let it go.

His hair, however, could not be permitted to continue in this state, or it might get ideas about its rights and liberties. Extremely inappropriate ideas.

Ryuzaki was watching him with those same wide, unassuming, and weirdly omniscient eyes.

Light smiled a little. "Yes?"

"Must Light-kun always tame his hair?" Ryuzaki inquired.

"Of course," Light answered, slightly bewilderedly. "I look like hell when I've just rolled out of bed. I mean, look at this." A sweep of the hand served to indicate his general dishevelment.

"I am looking intently, Light-kun," Ryuzaki replied, doing just that, "and I maintain that there is something uniquely human and appealing about the way you look before you've completed your toilette."

Light blinked. He wasn't sure how to take that. He wasn't sure how he _wanted_ to take that.

Before he could figure it out, there was a brisk knock at the door.

"Ah," Ryuzaki noted. "That will be room service." He smiled at Light, the hapless, childlike smile that Light thought might be his favorite. "There will be cake," Ryuzaki reported.

Hapless? Childlike? What was he, a pedophile?

Light tried not to shudder as he followed Ryuzaki to the door.

The eyes of the young woman with the room service cart fixated immediately on the glinting silver chain between the shirtless Light and his rumpled companion.

Ryuzaki paused tactfully. "Whatever it looks like," he told her, "rest assured that that is not what it is."

Somehow, she didn't look convinced.

When, armed with a genial tip and more than a glimpse of Kira Case Team-brand insanity, the woman departed, Ryuzaki moved without hesitation for the angel food cake—which, Light had little choice but to concede reluctantly, was not _all_ that distant from a variety of confirmed breakfast foods.

"Is there anything that won't send my blood sugar into orbit?" he inquired wryly.

Ryuzaki smiled, licking his fingers with that peculiar delicacy he had. "I made sure to provide some of the cardboard squares—ah, pardon me; _bran flakes_—to which Light-kun is so inexplicably attached."

Light grinned. "Thank you," he replied. "Your consideration is touching."

"Touché?" Ryuzaki asked innocently.

x

When Ryuzaki had demolished a staggering quantity of cake supplemented by a considerable volume of tea, he stood, brushed crumbs from his sleep-wrinkled clothes, and let Light "complete his toilette" without complaint. Light took his sweet time (though he supposed that, in general, Ryuzaki's time was significantly sweeter), knowing that when he'd finished, they'd have little choice but to plunge into the depths of the dragons' den.

Sure enough— "Time to wake Matt and Mello," Ryuzaki noted.

Light steeled himself mentally, ran his comb once more through his hair, and followed Ryuzaki into the fray.

As it turned out, the fray was extremely subdued. In fact, when Ryuzaki slid the card key through the slot and opened the door, the fray greeted them with silence broken only by a soft, somnolent sigh and the rustle of sheets as a sleeping dragon rolled partway over. There was a handheld video game on the leftward nightstand and a pile of chocolate bars on the one to the right. It didn't take a genius—or the somewhat explosive tufts of red and yellow hair emerging from beneath the bedspread—to tell whose side was whose.

Ryuzaki considered a moment and then turned to Light.

"Sing something," he said.

Light stared at him. "What?"

Ryuzaki blinked, unperturbed. "If Light-kun could be moved to sing," he reasoned, "his transcendent voice would rouse the boys very gently, and they might not be quite so inclined towards raucousness and ribaldry as the day progressed."

Light frowned.

Ryuzaki smiled. "Might I recommend 'Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'' from _Oklahoma!_? It seems like an appropriate choice, particularly given that Mello is a closet Broadway geek."

Light opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again. "I have an idea," he announced, "that is slightly less humiliating for all involved."

Ryuzaki's smile remained painstakingly innocent, but his eyes glittered with a hint of suppressed glee.

"Light-kun knows the song, then," he concluded mildly.

Light gave his jaw another brief workout, and then he cleared his throat. "My idea."

Ryuzaki nodded contentedly. "Yes, Light-kun."

Light turned to the bed and planted his hands on his hips. "Time to get up, ladies!" he shouted. "We're burning daylight, and pretty soon you!"

The boys both sat up suddenly at the intrusion, looking around them with wide, sleep-blurred eyes. Their panic dissipated when they discovered the source of the interruption—which was a bit insulting, really. Light liked to think that he was a _little_ intimidating.

Matt was, of course, wearing black-and-white-striped pajamas, which made him look like an escaped convict who had somehow wandered onto the premises. Light certainly wasn't counting on the orange goggles to facilitate a semblance of normalcy.

Mello was, blessedly, not dressed in leather. He was, even more blessedly, dressed in the first place. Light wouldn't have put it past a boy with lace-up pants to sleep butt-naked, and it was anyone's guess whether Matt would have protested.

In any case, Mello's pajamas were plain black cotton, which made him look very young and startlingly… ordinary.

Then Mello woke up fully, put on a scowl, and once again became recognizable.

"You shoulda' sung something, asshole," he muttered, pushing his way free of the sheets and proceeding over to the bathroom, the door of which he slammed with a resonant _bang_ and locked with a solid _shick_.

Matt sat cross-legged on the bed and regarded the newcomers placidly. "What's on the agenda for today?" he inquired.

—

Mello fought tangles out of his hair, glowering at the mirror for having the audacity to display them. Mornings were the worst thing since—well, _ever_. Certainly since chocolate shortages. And telemarketers. And stupid punk-ass genius boys who chained themselves to L and went around not-singing to wake people up.

Cursorily he brushed his teeth, splashed some water on his face, and glowered a little more. Sometimes a good glower got him going.

Not today.

Petulantly, he slouched back out into the bedroom, where a certain Matt character was peeling his shirt off while L examined the chocolate with interest and that Yagami prick stood by looking disturbed.

Damn Matt, with his enviable abs and his tousled hair and the flecks-of-chocolate freckles scattered sparingly over his shoulders…

Y'know, Matt was really kind of—

On second thought, that didn't bear a third.

"Library, eh?" Matt was saying. "Sure, Near loves libraries. Except he takes his books to the kids' section so he can keep his toys. But I dunno why you want to go to the library; I thought we decided he's been Near-napped."

L shrugged. "That's Mello's hypothesis, and it might prove true. I am, however, trying to index the places Near would be likely to have gone."

Mello suddenly realized the grave error at the very heart of this entire investigation:

They'd collected three Type-A (and one B-and-a-half) personalities, crammed them into an enclosed space, and presented them with a challenge.

On the bright side, no one had gone and gotten their head bitten off.

…yet.

"We should check out Wammy's first," Mello decided. He was, he knew, part of the problem, and that was slightly deliberate. He'd never seen anyone get their head bitten off before. He imagined there would be a lot of blood gushing everywhere. Walls, sheets, faces—everything all splashed and sticky—

So maybe he _did_ have a morbid streak.

He blamed Matt's enduring love-hate affair with slasher movies.

L nodded a little. Light looked bored and slightly disdainful. Matt still didn't have a shirt on, the damn nudist.

_That_ was an image Mello could have gone the rest of his life without picturing in painstaking detail.

"To Wammy's, then," he declared, frantically attempting to scour his brain with some mental steel wool.

"Breakfast first," L replied.

"You just had breakfast," Light reminded him.

"At risk of sounding like a geek," L responded equably, "what about second breakfast?"

"I knew it!" Strangely, Light sounded more triumphant than traumatized. "I _knew_ you'd be a 'Lord of the Rings' fan!"

L smiled. "I worry I wax slightly predictable," he noted.

Light raised an eyebrow. "I predict you've thought of nothing but the strawberries since we left them in the room."

L looked slightly alarmed. "I _am _predictable." Amusement lit his eyes again. "Nevertheless, I would hate to leave lonely strawberries unattended any longer than is strictly necessary."

Mello wrinkled his nose. This was _sickening_.

He turned to exchange a glance with Matt only to discover that his erstwhile bedmate, while possessed of a shirt, was now lacking pants.

Matt's boxers were black with a motif of Mario power-up mushrooms.

"Christ, Matt!" Mello howled. "Will you put some damn _clothes_ on?"

Matt looked down at himself idly. "I have _some_ clothes on," he responded. "Just not a _lot_."

Mello made a strangled noise, and Matt shrugged and hopped-skipped-jigged into his pants, hair swaying into his eyes.

Mello made another strangled noise.

"You might get dressed, too, Mello-kun," L remarked.

"Unless you're ready to face the world _without_ looking like a cheap prostitute," Light added.

Mello needed more ammo on this guy; he didn't have any glaringly obvious weird habits.

"Somehow it doesn't surprise me that you know all about hookers," he commented, rifling through his bag, "since they're the only way you'd ever get some."

Light's eyes narrowed, and his cheeks went pink. "You little­—"

"Light-kun."

"Did you _hear_—?"

"By rising to it, Light-kun, you merely encourage him."

Mello smirked. As far as this game went, Yagami was a bit of a lightweight, pun horrible and egregiously intended.


	6. The House That Wammy Built

_Author's Note: There was no way I was going to research Winchester extensively. Or that I would have, had I even remembered that Wammy's has a finite geographical location when I started out. Consider this particular Winchester a province of Tierfaltopia instead—and in Tierfaltopia, the boys are always hot, the chocolate never runs out, and the puns are always bad enough to cause physical pain! :D_

* * *

VI. The House That Wammy Built

While they were loitering over breakfast—Mello was inhaling Cocoa Puffs with inhuman speed, but he'd filled his bowl so high that it was nonetheless a lengthy devouring process—Ryuzaki lifted the room phone in that strange, two-fingered grip of his and commenced twirling the cord with his other hand, the chain jingling idly.

"Hello, Watari," he said when the line caught. "Do you think you could send a car?"

Ah. So that was where Watari had gone when the vast majority of the team had disbanded in the silence after the storm.

When he'd hung up, Ryuzaki smiled faintly down at the phone where it sat smugly in the cradle. "I do appreciate how few questions he asks," he remarked.

_Like 'What are you freaks up to this time'?_ Light wondered, realizing resignedly that he had by now unequivocally joined the Freak Brigade.

Matt stuffed a miniature blueberry muffin into his mouth whole. "Roger asks about a billion questions," he announced around it.

Mello muttered something about the bane of his existence before returning his full attention to slurping Cocoa Puffs.

Light didn't know where this was going, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

But he was indubitably going to find out anyway.

x

Wammy's House, as Light discovered upon stumbling over the chain trying to get out of the car and nearly introducing his face to the gravel walk, was a grand, sprawling manor with a steep slate roof. Gray bricks climbed three and four stories, walls pocked with windows glinting in the sickly pallor of the weak morning sunlight, and the grand front door rose stoically beyond an imposing wrought-iron gate.

Light stared. "You all _grew up_ here?" he managed.

There were nods all around, but everyone's eyes were on the house—if you could even reduce the monstrous mansion to the word "house." Matt's gaze was fond, Mello's slightly reverent, and Ryuzaki's… unreadable. Perhaps a flicker of a shadow crossed his face, but when Light blinked, it was gone.

"Shall we?" Ryuzaki inquired rhetorically. A deft finger tapped a code into the number pad by the gate, and, with a grating rumbling of machinery, the two halves of the fence parted, opening the path to the door.

As Light quickly discovered, the inside of Wammy's House was very much like the outside in style—that was, somber and grandiose—but for the fact that it was virtually overflowing with toys and children of every shape, size, and description.

Light supposed there probably weren't _actually_ that many of them, but he wasn't accustomed to having snot-faced ankle-biters staring up at him with wide, frighteningly-perceptive eyes. Five-year-olds weren't supposed to have eerily knowing smiles. That was just _creepy_.

They progressed down halls and up a stairway, Light trying, seemingly futilely, just to take it all in. He noticed a plaque on the wall that read, _Wammy's House for Extraordinary Children_, which merited a grin.

"'Extraordinary,'" he pointed out. "That's certainly one way to put it."

Matt grinned, too. "I think I was more ordinary before I came here," he decided. "Around here, you can't just be that smart kid with no parents, 'cause _everybody's_ a smart kid with no parents. So you've got to do and be something crazy if you want to establish yourself."

They'd paused in the hallway, Matt admiring the shining gold face of the plaque. Light noticed that Ryuzaki was shifting his weight, moved by something that might have been the second-cousin-once-removed of impatience.

Light looked at the three of them, his fellow members of the Freak Brigade, where they stood—Matt angled, Mello posing, Ryuzaki slouching with his eyes averted.

"You're all orphans," he said before he could help himself. "All of you."

No bedtime stories, no cookies when they came home from school. No hugs; no birthday breakfasts; no brief, brushing kisses on the forehead; no _You're special to me, and you always will be_.

Mello snorted. "No shit, Sherlock."

And apparently no shit.

Leather-clad shoulders lifted in an unconcerned shrug. "It's not like we cry ourselves to sleep every night," Mello informed him. "It's like frigging Peter Pan around here, you know? Lost Boys and stuff. We just do whatever the hell we want, get in trouble all the time." He smiled a little. It looked slightly strange usurping the smirk's and the scowl's established territory.

"He isn't exaggerating," Matt remarked. "He really does mean 'all the time.' Mello has the unique ability to get into trouble in his sleep."

"We do try to cultivate unusual talents here," a familiar voice announced from further up the stairwell.

A half-turn revealed, of course, Watari.

Ryuzaki smiled, warmly and genuinely, as the old gentleman made his stately way down the stairs towards them. "Good morning, Watari-san."

"Good morning," Watari replied. "To what do we owe the honor of your presence?" He glanced at the chain, mischief glinting in his eyes. "And that of your symbiote?"

"We heard about Near," Ryuzaki answered.

"Ah, yes," Watari noted. He looked at Matt and Mello. "Later, I will be subjecting the two of you to a detailed explanation of the fact that, as Frequent Flier miles do not grow on trees, they should not be pilfered in the dark of the night without so much as a by-your-leave."

Matt and Mello shared a look and then faced Watari again. "No idea what you're talking about," they averred in unison.

Watari did not look amused.

Light was, however; anything that resulted in Mello being on the sore ears end of a lecture of epic proportions was all right by him.

"Let's talk this over in the office," Watari decided, "shall we?"

Apparently, they shalled.

Watari sat behind a broad desk, folded his hands on the blotter, and looked at them. Light and Ryuzaki had claimed the two chairs, which left Matt and Mello loitering by the door. Light had to admit that he'd never before seen anyone loiter with so much _gusto_.

"We discovered, of course," Watari informed them, "that Near had gone missing. We originally assumed, given their coincident disappearances, that Matt and Mello had abducted him for some nefarious end, but the unfortunate revelation that I was suddenly down a few thousand Frequent Flier miles made short work of that concern." He rearranged his hands on the desktop. "With that ruled out, we turned to the security cameras that we installed after the evening upon which Matt and Mello decided to go pub-hopping for Matt's sixteenth birthd—"

"How many times do I have to _tell_ you?" Mello cut in. "It was just a quick run to the game store! Honestly!" Mello cemented the point by folding his arms moodily and beginning to mutter about a deplorable lack of trust and cynics having infiltrated the upper tiers of even the most trusted establishments.

Watari smiled. "Scintillatingly convincing excuses aside," he noted, "we found no sign of Near whatsoever in the surveillance footage. It wouldn't be too unlikely to assume, however, that the two of you might have a great deal more success, to which end I would be more than happy to make you a copy of the tapes."

Ryuzaki nodded absently, thumbnail already against his lip. "That would be wonderful, Watari-san," he murmured.

"I can have that done for you in just a few minutes," Watari pledged. "In the meantime, might you like to settle in a bit? Ryuzaki, your old room is, as always, available."

Ryuzaki nodded again, his wild, dark hair swaying faintly.

That was that, and without further ado, Light, Ryuzaki, Matt, and Mello were traipsing down the stairs once again. An early landing gave Ryuzaki pause, and he heaved his suitcase off of the stair runner and onto its hardwood.

"This is the one, Light-kun," he said quietly.

"We'll be downstairs at the scene of the crime," Mello reported, skipping past them surprisingly deftly given the presumed weight of his buckle-ridden leather boots.

Ignoring the Terrorizing Twosome, Light followed Ryuzaki into a modest room themed and decorated in pale blues and soft, faded whites. Predictably enough, the bookshelf was absolutely overflowing, and a respectable laptop sat dead center on the desk. There was a neat stack of napkins not far away, as if the room's occupant might frequently—or, more likely, _invariably_—feel inclined to snack while working.

Ryuzaki laid his suitcase out on the floor, unzipped it, retrieved a small stuffed panda, and set it gently on the pillow on the left side of the bed.

The idea of the world's greatest detective curled up in the bed, hair splayed over the pillowcase, clutching the panda in question to his chest was…

Well, so adorable as to be almost nauseating, really.

Ryuzaki straightened—as much as the man ever did, anyway; Light's back ached just thinking about the condition of his companion's spinal cord—and led the way to the door.

"Perhaps Matt and Mello will have gained some insight," he remarked, starting down the stairs. "I believe we're headed to the kitchen, so even if they haven't found any clues, it won't be a total loss."


	7. Disrupted Variables

_Author's Note: Hope you're not ODing on Light's perspective yet… 8__D_

_Also, Tierfal is vry vry happy that everybody seems to be enjoying this sucker so far! :D Thanks!  
_

* * *

VII. Disrupted Variables

Matt and Mello were crawling around under the kitchen table when Light and Ryuzaki arrived, which entailed Light's getting an unrequested eyeful of a certain leather-clad derrière.

"Jesus, Mello—!" he cried, covering his eyes.

"Loves me, yes," Mello replied unconcernedly.

By the time Light dared peel his fingers from his face, Mello was up and brushing off his hands.

"Well," he declared, "nothing we could find. No more puzzle pieces, certainly. We will, however, be taking the five-pound note we found under the refrigerator into custody for further investigation."

Matt joined his partner in crime…-solving, adjusting his goggles. "You can see if you can find anything, though," he noted. "It's perfectly possible we missed something."

"We'll go see if Watari's got the tapes yet," Mello agreed.

With that and a toss of yellow hair over a leather-coated shoulder, they departed for the stairs again.

The two remaining occupants of the room regarded each other. Light shrugged.

"I don't know where to start," he confessed.

"The floor is as good a place as any," Ryuzaki sighed.

Thus it was that Light Yagami, top scorer on the To-Oh entrance exam, only son of Chief Director Soichiro Yagami, a boy with a mind like a steel trap with a nitrous boost, commenced crawling around under the kitchen table at an orphanage for weird kids.

_Oh, pardon me,_ he thought. _'Extraordinary' kids._

It was odd, though, looking at the place—at the moment, looking at the grit on its linoleum—and wondering just what life would have been like if he'd been one of those 'extraordinary' children. If he would still be the person he was.

If he would still be on hands and knees brushing fluff off of one of the tiles while Ryuzaki crouched in that distinctly Ryuzaki way beside him, gray eyes unfathomable in the shadow of the table.

"I suppose perhaps we should search for other puzzle pieces," Ryuzaki mused, "but I can't imagine where we might find the next… if indeed they are in a series… if indeed Near left them deliberately with intent of our finding them… and if so, if he meant for them to _have_ an order, as that would imply—"

Footsteps pounded into the room, and Matt's breathless voice summoned them.

"Hey, Mello says—"

Light and Ryuzaki simultaneously attempted to stand and simultaneously cracked their heads against the underside of the table.

"Ouch," Ryuzaki said.

"Son of a _bitch_," Light said.

Matt paused. "That you'd better come quick before he starts Movie Night without you," he finished. "Ciao!"

Boots stampeded up the stairs again, leaving Light and Ryuzaki alone in the kitchen once again, now both rubbing regretfully at their heads.

"One thing, Light-kun," Ryuzaki noted. "While Matt's and Mello's language has been known to cause hemorrhaging of the blood vessels in the ears, the wards have learned that following their example invariably ends in trouble. You, on the other hand…" He gave Light a quick half-smile. "Appear to be an upstanding citizen, and they will see that you have my and Watari's respect. A misplaced expletive might make an impression upon an impressionable mind."

Light stared at him, then hastened to follow his chain-mate as Ryuzaki started for the stairs.

"Are you calling me a potty-mouth?" he managed, incredulous at best.

Ryuzaki turned partway, one bare foot poised, and smiled again. "Merely hoping to ensure that I don't have to," he replied.

x

When they arrived at the landing that hosted Ryuzaki's room, Mello and Matt were lounging on the bed, the former toying with the beads of his crucifix, the latter petting at the fur behind the stuffed panda's ears. Mello jumped up when he saw them, but Matt seemed less than enthusiastic about the idea of abandoning his newfound friend.

"Are you ready to scour some video footage?" Mello inquired, pounding the opposite fist into his open palm. "Make sure to keep an eye out for sketchy unmarked vans—probably black. You've seen the way that kid is about robots. It's like they're the treasure of the Sierra Madre."

Matt arranged the panda on the pillow and got up, placing his hands in his pockets. "The way you are about chocolate, then?"

Mello scowled at him. "At least I don't go all puppy-eyed every time we pass the video game store."

Matt snorted. "Ever seen _yourself_ in the candy aisle at the supermarket?"

Mello rolled his eyes. "Even in the event that I _could_ see myself, I'm sure I wouldn't make nearly so pathetic a spectacle as _you_ did the night of the 'Super Smash Bros. Brawl' release—"

"You played _just_ as long as I did—"

"'Til my eyes rotted? Damn right, I did. And did you buy me any chocolate the next day when we were at the gas station? If memory serves, you did _not_."

"I'll serve _you_ something for memory—"

Ryuzaki took the contentious couple by a shoulder each, guided them out the door, and shut it behind them.

They didn't seem to notice.

"—don't know why you insist on playing as _Link_ anyway—"

"Maybe because he's a hell of a lot cooler than another _blond_ I know—"

"Oh, no, you _didn't_."

Ryuzaki sat down on the bed, drew his knees up, and touched his thumb to his lips.

"Light-kun?" he prompted, seeing Light's confounded expression.

Light blinked at him. "How did you _ever_ survive in this place?" he demanded. "I mean, I thought _my _adolescence was tough."

Ryuzaki, as was his wont, merely smiled.

—

L wrapped his arms around his knees, gazing at the screen of his laptop where it perched on the comforter before him. He searched the shadows of the familiar stone façade, simultaneously watching the timer flicking the seconds away in the bottom-right, the figures blurring back and forth, and Light-kun leaning over his own computer's screen as he dozed (the lattermost, of course, out of the corner of his eye).

When he touched the spacebar with an outstretched finger, the video footage obediently paused, and after a bit of consideration, he retrieved the panda from its perch on the nightstand. He held it in two hands for a moment, meeting unfathomable glassy eyes, and then gently wrapped his arms around it and hugged it to his chest.

He'd spent good years here—wonderful years, years he wouldn't trade for cheesecake or spongecake or pie—but somehow it felt… strange. Wrong, perhaps, though that was a qualitative judgment he always hesitated to make.

It was Light-kun, he realized, guilt-frosted bewilderment churning in the pit of his stomach. It was because all the variables were the same—because he was back here with Mello and Matt and Quillish, with the scuffed staircases and the grandfather clock and the well-walked rugs and the vaulted ceilings and this _room_—but Light was here, here to witness the world that had shaped L Lawliet more than any other. Was it a lingering worry that Light Yagami was—despite all evidence to the contrary, despite the unobtrusive glow of his honeyed eyes, despite the faint curl of the corners of his lips when he tried not to smile—a mass-murdering psychopath hell-bent on eradicating the planet's sinners? Was it the gut-deep, hopelessly enduring potentiality that Light could be, might be, would turn out to be Kira?

Or was it that Light might find Wammy's ridiculous—and deem L absurd by association?

It _was_ ridiculous, wasn't it? This strange, worn, _loved_ place that produced boys in rosaries and leather, goggled-eyed boys glued to their video games, and boys who dressed like slobs, who slurped their ice cream when it started melting and peeked out at normal people through a veil of uncombed hair?

And tiny boys dressed in socks and spotless pajamas, with slender fingers twisted into startlingly pale hair—boys who refused to show up on the surveillance footage no matter how much L's eyes burned.

Ah, perhaps that was where the error lay—two variables had been disrupted. Light was here, and Near was gone. Near, who understood him, who believed in him, who comprehended precisely how Wammy's operated, down to the smallest, strangest abandoned child ghosting through the halls, was out there somewhere, out in the Somewhere Else.

Whereas Light could see L's past spread out before him like an impressively clashing patchwork quilt.

The question again, the question that sizzled—Was it suspicion that sank in his stomach, or was it shame?

"Ryuzaki?" Light prompted blearily, having started awake again.

"Yes, Light-kun?" L responded equably, tightening his grip on the panda imperceptibly.

Light scrubbed at his eyes. "Are you going to be up late?" he inquired.

L looked at Light until the boy glanced over, at which point L smiled.

"Light-kun forgets who he addresses," he remarked.

Ruefully, Light grinned. "Point taken," he conceded. "Willing to humor me with a shower?"

L closed his laptop, negotiating around the panda and pretending he hadn't noticed how dirty that sounded—pun not intended in the slightest.

"More than willing," he agreed. He glanced up at Light, slightly mischievously. "Provided that you sing."

Although Light rolled his eyes extravagantly, L could read the traces of willingness that darted elusively across his face, warm lightning dancing over blurry charcoal clouds.

x

"_We're no strangers to love_," Light-kun was crooning over the rush of the water and the jingle of the chain. L found the statement slightly debatable.

"_You know the rules_—" This was certainly untrue. "_—and so do I… A full commitment's what I'm thinkin' of… You wouldn't get this from any other guy_…"

Well, that much, if nothing else, was incontrovertible.

"_I just wanna tell you how I__'m feelin__'__…__ Gotta make you understand__… __Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down_—"

L found his head bobbing quite in spite of his better judgment—or perhaps _to_ spite his better judgment.

"_Never gonna run around and desert you_…"

It was, in retrospect, inevitable that he would start singing along softly.

"_Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt y_—"

The bathroom door burst open, admitting Matt and Mello, at which point the latter broke out into an eardrum-scarring falsetto.

"_Hush, hush—keep it down, now—voices carry_!"

Light shot back, "_Don't turn around—'cause you're gonna see my heart breakin'… Don't turn around—I don't want you seein' me cry… Just walk away_—"

By some anti-miracle, Mello's falsetto got even worse. "_Cry me a river_!"

He slammed the door again, Matt's hysterical giggling audible progressing down the hall.

Light was laughing, too, L realized—quietly but genuinely, the sound of it sweet and mellifluous. He drew the shower curtain back a little to offer L a broad grin, little rivulets running from his hair, eyes aglow.

"I think I'm warming to this place," he announced.

* * *

_Author's Note: …yes, you can now say you've been Rickroll'd in a fanfiction._

_Which probably also entails that YOU JUST LOST THE GAME. 8D_

_If it's any consolation, given that Light just Rickrolled the majority of Wammy's House, you're in pretty good company. If that's not enough, just think how lame this is going to be in a couple years when nobody even remembers what a Rickroll was. ;)_

_If THAT'S not enough, blame Eltea and my boyfriend, who utterly simultaneously came up with the idea when I asked for song suggestions… :P_


	8. Disciples

_Author's Note: Are you ready for some D-D-D-DENIAL?_

* * *

VIII. Disciples

Light opened his eyes and was greeted by the clacking of computer keys and a shaft of soft, butter-yellow morning sunshine that slipped between the pale curtains.

He basked in the latter for a moment before addressing the source of the former.

"Did you sleep?" he asked Ryuzaki.

A hint of a smile touched Ryuzaki's lips, but he didn't look up from his technological endeavors. "Maybe."

Light grinned. "What the hell kind of answer is that?"

Another hint of a smile joined its brother, and then another, until they'd amassed some full-on amusement. "That is a purposefully ambiguous answer, Light-kun."

"Well," Light replied loftily, "I'm going to be completing my purposefully ambiguous toilette now, if you don't mind, and if you fall asleep on the bathroom counter, it's not my fault."

Ryuzaki considered, regarding him with wide eyes. "I should hope," he decided, "that Light-kun will wake me if I should faceplant in a pool of hair gel."

Light grinned at him in the mirror. "Ah," he countered, "but imagine all the wonderful things Mello could do to your hair while you were unconscious."

A faint frown replaced Ryuzaki's neutral expression. "He has before discussed plans to spike it," he noted, "or to straighten it and put it in a ponytail."

Was it weird that that sounded hot?

Light decided it was, and he consequently decided in the same moment that he was never going to entertain that particular thought again.

The cold water that washing his face entailed certainly didn't hurt.

Matt and Mello, dressed to the nines already, met Light and Ryuzaki as they exited the bathroom.

"Hey, did you—" Mello began eagerly. He stopped, staring extremely conspicuously at Light's chest, which happened to be lacking a shirt. "Why the hell are you naked?"

Light's cheeks went a shade darker and more than a few degrees warmer. "I'm not _naked_," he spat; "I'm _shirtless_. I don't know if you've never been in a locker room, or what, but generally—"

"Generally, you're lame," Mello concluded, waving a dismissive hand. "Stop traumatizing me. Really. You're making a habit of it."

Light made an incredulous noise. "This from the boy in lace-up leather?" he demanded.

Mello opened his mouth to retaliate, but Ryuzaki raised an elegant hand, and Mello shut his prolific trap again.

"If we could leave the debates about sartorial propriety for another time," Ryuzaki remarked, "I believe we do have a task at hand."

"Isn't that right, Light?" Mello inquired cheerfully.

Light imagined taking a fistful of blond hair in each hand and yanking it all out.

He felt a little better.

_Dear Bright,_ he composed in his head, realizing suddenly that he'd been shirking his columnist duties something dreadful. _My boyfriend—_

Oh, no, no, no.

_My _best_ friend is a really wonderful guy, but his friends are really hard to deal with sometimes. Like there's this one who traipses around in leather and _might _be propositioning me all the time, and I just don't know what to do about him. Please help!_

_Signed, Loves Him, Not So Sure About His Disciples_

_Dear… Whoever the Hell You Are,_

_Stay away from the leather-fetish kid. Weirdos who dress like that—they spell trouble with a capital M-E-L-L-O. Er, T. In any case, there's always a disciple or two that goes bad, but that doesn't mean you can't still have your best friend._

_Besides, Leather Boy's probably just jealous that you've got Best Friend's attention. Rub it in his leather-fetish face!_

_Love, Bright_

Light nodded to himself absently. He really ought to take this columnist thing up on a professional level.

—

Matt pushed his goggles up his forehead and rubbed his eyes. Mello had been up late plotting nefariously, studying diligently, and sampling chocolate religiously—as was almost invariably the case. With Near mysteriously absent, Mello had decided, the merry way to superiority and the contingent everlasting fame was clear.

Matt wasn't too sure where the chocolate factored into all of this.

He kind of missed the little quasi-albino kid, though, whatever Mello said—Near wasn't a bad guy. Frighteningly brilliant? Yes. So imperturbably calm as to be unnerving? Utterly. Slightly evil? Horrifyingly, without a doubt.

But bad to be with? Not at all.

They'd had some good times, Matt and Near had—painting Mello's face that time he'd passed out over his history book; removing his black nail polish and replacing it with electric pink that time he'd passed out over his English essay; taking all the chocolate bars out of their wrappers and then replacing the foil to look like it was full that time he'd passed out over his biology homework… Good _times_.

Then, of course, he'd helped Mello get revenge by putting all of Near's robots on the roof, spelling out "Near's a twit" in a Lego city skyline, and stashing every single piece of train track on the premises in the girls' bathroom, respectively.

Matt was a bit of a mercenary when it came to crap like that. The owner of the most devious plan could generally count on his assistance in enacting it.

L led the way back up to his room, a room so desperately familiar that it warmed Matt's heart a little bit. He couldn't count the times a thunderstorm, a horror movie, or a nightmare had driven any combination of Mello, Matt, and Near up the terror of the shadowy staircase, the procession serenaded by forlorn sniffling, to the vast reward that was a strip of yellow light emerging from the crack beneath the door. He couldn't count the times the whole trio had curled up like kittens under L's comforter, lulled gently back to sleep by the soft tattoo of the computer's keys and the whisper of slender fingers absently stroking their hair.

It was all dreadfully touching and nostalgic.

Kind of sucked, though. Nowadays, he had to deal with the nightmares on his own.

L sat down on the bed and pulled his knees up. The total and complete _lack_ of surprise that Matt registered was extremely comforting (sitting on the comforter—comforting—jeez, no one _appreciated_…!).

Some things never changed.

L slid a fingertip across the laptop touchpad, and a blurry image of the front lawn of Wammy's swam obediently into view. The time in the bottom-right corner of the screen proclaimed _00:13_—thirteen minutes after midnight.

Near _did_ have a bit of a flair for the dramatic.

Well, maybe not, since Matt couldn't see quasi-albino head or tail of the kid in the fuzzy frame.

One of L's long fingers manipulated the mouse button and then rose to indicate the screen as it zoomed in on a grayish smudge beyond the fence.

"There," he said.

Matt, Mello, and Light all leaned forward, squinting.

"It's a bird," Matt decided.

"It's a plane," Mello added.

"It's _Super-Near_!" they sang in unison.

"_That's_ Near?" Light muttered. "Does he leap tall buildings in a single bound?"

"Mentally, yes," L answered. He shifted on the bed, fingertips wandering his lips, eyes on the screen. "There is a considerable chance that's Near, though I haven't determined the precise percentage—there are a lot of variables at work here, and Near works in a distinctly _Near_ sort of way, which makes calculations difficult."

Mello stroked his chin and turned to Matt. "Five pounds towards chocolate says there's a sketchy black van just past the fence."

Matt pushed his goggles up again and squinted even more intently. "Five pounds towards video games says none of this has anything to do with sketchy black vans."

Smirking now, Mello licked his lips. "You're on."

Matt snapped the goggles over his eyes again, grinning. "I'm _always_ on."

"Perhaps Matt-kun can apply his perpetual activation to the task at hand," L suggested, the glimmer of mischief in his eyes softening the reprimand. "Judging by what little we can see here of what we presume is Near, it seems likely that he exited out the back door, jumped the fence, and circled around the front, out of view of the cameras."

There was a long pause.

"The _back_ door," Mello murmured pensively.

Matt nodded slowly. "Much easier than hacking the surveillance feed," he agreed.

Light rolled his eyes. "You _would_."

"And have done," Mello confirmed.

"Forgive me," Light commented dryly, "if I find that less than inspiring."

"Forgive me," Mello retorted, "if I deem you less than tolerable, Glowstick—"

"Gentlemen," L interjected smoothly, "if I can interrupt the sniping, might we examine the rear yard for further evidence?"

Still glaring at one another, likely more for the sake of glaring than anything else, Light and Mello followed L down the stairs, and Matt followed them.

One of the most 'extraordinary' things about Wammy's was the manner in which it managed quite consistently to drive everyone within its walls to the brink of insanity, where they could look over the edge and wave cheerily down at the loonies below.

Matt reflected that life around here would be awfully boring if it didn't.


	9. Agent of Chaos

_Author's Note: Wait a second… Are we actually getting somewhere? Stop the presses!_

…_sorry about the catfight; it caught me by surprise. (Particular thanks to Eltea for help with the aftermath, which was just cruel and soul-killing before. XD)_

_My health-nut complex submits to chocolate, too. Just, um, every five minutes…_

_I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. XD  
_

* * *

IX. Agent of Chaos

Mello drew in a deep, satisfied breath of fresh air as the ungainly lot of them emerged out into the backyard of Wammy's House. It was a slightly bleak landscape out here—bit grayish; lots of pieces of playground equipment rearing from the dusty yard like dinosaurs' ribs. But that didn't matter, because Mello was entertaining glorious thoughts, thoughts that revolved around how one might use the Kinky Chain (for so he had christened it in a flash of two-in-the-morning ingeniousness) to trip Light without sending L tumbling to his death as well. Mello supposed he was whipping Light well enough with words—who had gone crying to "Ryuzaki" every time so far? Not _Mello_, that was for sure—but it wasn't _quite_ enough.

Mello _did_ have a tendency to do things a hundred and twenty-five percent, with all cylinders firing and all systems go, or not to attempt them at all. Was that a crime?

As L gazed interestedly around at the various less-than-stunning features of the yard, Matt delved into a bottomless cargo pants pocket and retrieved a pack of cigarettes. He smacked it sharply twice against his palm (Mello suspected he completed the maneuver because he thought he should and not because he had any actual reason in mind), selected a choice specimen, and slipped it between his lips.

Mello was _not_ going to think about Matt's lips. Nope. Not at all.

Matt had raised the lighter and was moving to flick it when—

"Matt-kun!" L cried.

Matt blinked, thumb halfway poised. "What?" he prompted bewilderedly.

"Not only," L griped, "does Matt-kun poison his own lungs with tar and chemicals, he seeks to compromise _our_ pulmonary well-being as well."

Matt sighed. "If you don't want me to smoke, you could just say so. Roger won't let me smoke inside, either."

"As well he shouldn't," L murmured. "When you live to be twenty-five, you'll thank him."

Matt frowned, tucking the cigarette and the lighter back into a pocket. "Speaking of which," he noted, "how exactly have you conspired to live to twenty-five with a diet three-quarters composed of cake?"

L smiled. "A magician never tells," he answered.

Then a strange, startling, and unprecedented event took place: Light contributed something remotely useful.

"Isn't that one of those puzzle pieces?" he asked, pointing at a sliver of white visible in the dust.

In retrospectively amusing unison, Mello, Matt, and L all turned to look.

"Holy shit," Mello said. "Lightbulb actually _did_ something."

Light stepped forward menacingly (or so he seemed to think). "You think I'm dead weight, don't you?" he challenged. "You think I'm just some sort of accessory—Ryuzaki's new tool kit that he only needs to use when the going's real tough, and even then it doesn't help much—isn't that right?"

Light-o _was_ a bit of a hammerhead. Screwball. Doornail.

If only he'd provide some duct tape, which Mello could use to attach him to a wall and leave him there.

"Yes," Mello confirmed blithely. "That is right."

L closed his eyes, looking pained. "Gentlemen," he began.

But Yagamios, part of this balanced breakfast, wasn't having any of that this time around.

"_No_," Light retorted without so much as glancing at their leader-by-default. "You think you're hot shit, don't you, Mello? You think that because people let you get away with dressing like a sideshow and snapping at them, you're entitled to treat people like crap."

Mello had slammed his fist down on a nerve like a game show buzzer. He squirmed happily, but the Luminescent Wonder wasn't finished.

"Know what, Mello? You've got nothing on me—no right to act like I'm not worth the ground you're walking on with those frigging ridiculous boots." Light clapped a hand to his chest, eyes blazing, and Mello tried his very best not to snort.

His best wasn't good enough.

"I'll have you know," Light hissed, "the Kira Case would be _nowhere_ and _nothing_ without me. I've helped tons of—"

Mello tapped a fingertip against his chin. "Kira Case," he remarked thoughtfully. "Yes, I vaguely remember hearing about a Kira Case, back _when there_ _was one_."

Oh, _yes_. He could see in Light's eyes that the maligned detective was about to bite someone's head off. It'd probably be his, but still—!

Mihael Keehl was nothing if not an agent of chaos.

Which helped to explain the leather thing, too.

And the fact that Light lunged for him with two clenched fists and one hell of a homicidal snarl.

Judging by the murder in Light's eyes, Mello probably would have gotten to see someone—well, him—get his fat head ripped right the hell off had L not snatched two handfuls of the boy's crimson knit sweater and yanked him bodily backwards.

Light stumbled, and L steadied him.

"I don't think you know what you're getting into, Mello-kun," he said quietly.

Mello smirked and moved to shrug, but L held a hand up.

"Light-kun," he announced, "has a mean right hook."

Mello was suddenly unsure whether or not he wanted to know how L had discovered this particular detail. Everything seemed a great deal sketchier with the Honorable Kinky Chain presiding.

Light's lip curled. "Go to hell, Mello," he snapped.

The rosary suddenly seemed just a little bit heavier where it hung against Mello's chest.

Light turned on his heel and stormed back into the house, L trailing helplessly behind him.

It was only when Mello felt the familiar contours of the crucifix beneath his tentative fingertips that he realized he'd lifted his hand.

Gravel crunched softly as Matt went and plucked the puzzle piece from where it lay nestled into the dust. He bounced it in his palm a little, pocketed it, and returned to the back porch, where he sat down on the top step and finally lit a long-awaited cigarette.

"He already feels like an outsider, y'know," Matt remarked. "You don't have to rub it in his face."

"He _is_ an outsider," Mello retorted. "Not to mention an arrogant asshole and a supercilious prick."

Matt blew a thin stream of smoke. "You kept up with the Kira Case more than anybody else here. All the news reports, all the shit in the papers—you've probably still got all the clippings and printouts somewhere. L's greatest challenge, and his partner just happens to be a brilliant Japanese brunet with great eyes and a nice ass—"

"Middling at best," Mello muttered.

"—who shows up quite literally chained to his side. It's a Pat Benatar lyric made real."

"You," Mello informed him, "just got lamer than I even thought possible."

"Don't hate on Pat Benatar," Matt warned idly. "She might try to take her pants back." He itched at his head. "Really, Mel. There's no need to be jealous of Frightful Delightful, because whatever he is to L—and I doubt that even L knows quite what that is—he's not replacing what you are."

Mello sat heavily next to Matt, the planks of the porch creaking faintly in protest, and clutched at the crucifix again.

"He's still a supercilious prick," he mumbled.

Matt sighed, smoke curling elaborately. "Remind me why we're friends?" he prompted.

Mello managed a weak evil grin. "Because the world's too fair for me not to be one of a kind."

"Ah, yes," Matt agreed mildly. "Your blessed originality." He took a long drag on the cigarette, the end's embers flaring red, and glanced over, smiling a little. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe giving people a chance might help you in the long run?"

Mello kicked at the dust, watching a cloud rise and then settle lackadaisically right about where it had begun. "I gave you a chance."

Cigarette balanced between two fingers now, Matt shook his head. "So what do we have to do?" he asked resignedly. "Put the kid in some orange goggles and stripes? Dye his hair?"

Mello felt his eyes go round. "Oh, God," he breathed. "Can we please, please, _please_ dye his hair?"

Matt's palm connected very solidly with his forehead.

—

Light was irritated, aggravated, displeased, disappointed, and exasperated to a degree that verged on epic. He felt, on the whole, extremely sour.

Which might have been a considerable part of the reason that something in him melted when, the moment they reached their room, Ryuzaki retrieved the massive box of candy and held it out to him.

"Take something," he suggested.

Light hesitated. Normally—

Ha. "Normal" had no place in this particular establishment, and, as such, ought to be avoided at all costs.

Accordingly, he delved his hand into the box, rummaged amongst its various brightly-colored contents, and retrieved a cookies-and-cream white chocolate bar.

"Jackpot!" he commented, taking it in both hands to admire his prize.

It was then that he noticed the disconcerted expression that had staged a coup of Ryuzaki's face.

"What?" he prompted.

Ryuzaki paused, his face going blank again, and shrugged. He smiled. "Nothing, Light-kun."

That was about as believable as "Mello won't do any permanent damage to your soul and psyche, let alone your defenseless retinas."

Light tossed the bar back into the box and retrieved milk chocolate instead.

Ryuzaki didn't speak, but momentary relief might well have flashed across his face before he ducked to slide the box under the bed again.

Settled on the comforter, the chain coiled between them like a snake twisting its silver length in the sun, Light nibbled at his acquisition.

Apparently, the world's greatest detective was really big on white chocolate.

Light couldn't blame him.

Half a chocolate bar (that was, ten minutes of a whimpering health-nut complex being beaten into submission) later, there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," Ryuzaki murmured without ungluing his gaze from the computer screen. Light wondered absently why he never asked who it was before offering permission to enter. Did he really feel that secure, or did he just want to give the impression of security?

The door swung open just far enough to admit Matt, for whose presence Light was suddenly grateful simply because said presence didn't belong to Mello.

"Got a present for you," Matt announced. With a deft flick of his thumb—Light wondered if the aptitude came from using lighters all the time—he flipped the white puzzle piece Light had seen in the yard towards the bed.

As was usually the case, Ryuzaki caught it effortlessly despite the familiar pretense of inattention. "Thank you, Matt-kun," he said. He examined his acquisition, turning it over in long, thin fingers, pale eyes sharp. "Is this mark permanent?"

Matt scratched his head, red hair parting obediently for his fingernails. "It looks like Sharpie," he noted, "but I feel like if it's there, that's because it needs to be there."

Ryuzaki nodded once and set the puzzle piece next to its brother on the nightstand. Light craned his neck to look. The two would fit together.

There was something reassuring about the way that puzzle pieces did that—the way they slotted right in with those around them, they way they _belonged_ with the others.

Kind of gave you a weird, over-analyzed, pathetically metaphorical sort of hope.

Light looked bewilderedly down at his chocolate bar. What was _in_ this shit?

As Light started scanning the ingredients list on the package for illicit substances, Matt adjusted the strap of his goggles. "So… I was thinking we could have a Halo tournament," he said, "if you guys are interested."

The idea of shooting the living hell out of a digital avatar of Mello sounded horrifyingly appealing. Light blamed the chocolate.

"Much as I do enjoy Halo," Ryuzaki replied, apparently perfectly serious, "we might be better advised to start seeking out all the places Near might have gone and searching them for puzzle pieces."

Matt stuck out his bottom lip. "_One_ game?" he pleaded.


	10. The Library of Doom

_Author's Note: Still working on this whole plot-in-motion thing. I suck at plots so much that I often find ways to foil Eltea's brilliance on accident. That takes _skillz_. Let me tellya._

* * *

X. The Library of Doom

"The _library_?" Mello sighed. "I hate the library."

Matt glanced at him. "I thought you loved the library."

"I did," Mello confirmed, "until Ms. Oswald retired. The new lady's _evil_."

L hid a smile. He remembered Ms. Oswald, who had worn a wryly amused smile and tortoiseshell glasses, and who had been known to get into detailed discussions of the merits and drawbacks of different chocolate brands with a certain yellow-haired Wammy's ward on more than one occasion.

Matt was considering Mello as they progressed out the door. "Did you run through the foyer singing stuff from _Carmen_ the first day she was there?"

Mello looked scandalized. "_No_," he replied. "Why does everyone always assume I've done something to deserve the treatment I get?"

"Perhaps because you usually do?" Light muttered before L could stop him.

Fortunately, Mello was moving on to a rant too quickly to hear. "She's just prejudiced against boys wearing nail polish," he decided firmly, planting a hand on either hip. "Tons of people are. You'd be surprised. They act like I've already done something wrong, and it gets to the point that it's like, 'Well, why should I disappoint 'em?'" He kicked at the gravel of the drive as they neared (L cringed inwardly; it was much too prevalent a word) the car. "She doesn't even have chocolate on her desk. And she looks at me like I've got a criminal record."

As inconspicuously as possible, L opened the front door and motioned to Light to climb across to the passenger seat.

"Don't you?" Matt asked.

Mello scowled and tossed himself into the backseat. "They dropped the charges for the Huntington Street Incident."

"As damn well they should have," Matt declared.

L removed the parking break and glanced at Mello over his shoulder.

"The what?" Light prompted before L even had a chance to speak.

Mello snapped his seatbelt on and looked out the window. Out of the corner of his eye, L saw Matt doing the same. "On Huntington Street," Mello said, a hint of an edge to his voice, "on the way back from the park, there was a dog that used to bark at us—huge Rottweiler, slavering jaws, all that shit and more too. We'd always joke nervously about how big the dog was and how small the fence, but we'd just walk fast and try to ignore it, and Near would say how you can't make eye contact, and it'd be okay. Then one night, we were walking back after a three-man game of cricket, right as it was getting dark, and the dog started barking louder even than usual. We went to the other side of the street, but then we heard the tags jingling, and then we heard this _crack_ and a _thump_, and we turned to look, and that _monster_ dog had snapped its leash and scrambled over the fence and was coming right towards us."

L had never heard this story before. Something about the sharpness to Mello's voice told him that he was about to find out why.

There was a silence.

"Then what?" Light breathed.

Mello met Light's eyes levelly. "We ran, it caught us, and it sunk its teeth into Near's side."

"Twelve stitches," Matt remarked softly.

Mello didn't blink. "And I took my cricket bat and beat it 'til it stopped moving."

There was another silence. L's fingers lay unmoving on the keys in the ignition, because he didn't dare to disturb a moment as fragile as this one.

Light swallowed. "I—I'm sorry," he managed. "That's really terrible. That that happened."

Mello offered a fluid shrug, but the faint gratitude that crossed his face for a moment was unmistakable. "You know what they say," he replied. "About what doesn't kill you."

Light smiled weakly. "Leaves you maimed and mangled, with a hospital bill that costs more than your mortgage?"

Mello winked. "You learn fast."

x

L guided the car cautiously into a parking spot near the library entrance. Mello frowned.

"Get ready to see me get profiled by a librarian," he muttered.

"She probably has a crush on you," Matt replied airily, grinning like a cat.

Mello eyed him. "She's probably eighty-five years old."

"An _eighty-five-year-old librarian_ hates you?" Light summarized bewilderedly.

"Wait until you see her," Mello instructed, climbing out of the car. "She's a _demon_."

Mello's demon was a tiny old lady with huge round glasses and a mess of white hair twirled into a chignon. She peeped at them over the check-in counter, and a grave expression settled on her face as she caught sight of Mello.

Mello slouched a little lower, trying not to make eye contact.

The librarian frowned at him, her lined face pinching. "You again," she noted in a wobbly, reedy voice that sounded as though it would fail any minute. She waggled a gnarled index finger reproachfully in Mello's direction. "Don't give me a reason to revoke your card."

"I like my card," Mello muttered, scuffing a boot against the carpet.

The New Lady-Demon Librarian opened her mouth to reply, but then she saw Light.

Light, who was young, bright-eyed, desperately attractive, and dressed in a cream-colored button-down-shirt, a crimson cashmere sweater, and khaki slacks.

Yes, L was seeing a tiny bit of profiling at work here.

"Hello, there, dear," the librarian crooned. "Can I help you find something?"

L was curious how she would react to the handcuffs, but she didn't appear to have noticed their presence. Perhaps Light's blatant preppiness was downright blinding.

L worried that he was starting to think like Mello.

"We're just browsing," Light replied smoothly, flashing a smile that somehow managed to be both humble and dazzling.

"Browse to your heart's content, love," the librarian permitted.

Light thanked her graciously and sauntered off towards the stacks, his dumbfounded compatriots in tow.

"I told you," Mello sighed. "Maybe next time I should show up dressed like it's recess at prep school."

"A better question," Light noted pleasantly, his glinting eyes betraying his amusement. "What would she have said if she'd seen the chain?"

Matt smirked. "'Where do I sign up?'" he hazarded.

Mello cackled. "Damn, Lightbulb," he reprimanded. "Can't you at least limit yourself to your own age group?"

Light shrugged and grinned. "Is it my fault I'm irresistible?" he asked.

L was fairly sure that it was.

Attempting to sweep that thought under his mental rug, he glanced at the closest set of shelves. A flash of white on the floor caught his eye, and in diving for it, he almost toppled Light—who was, appropriately, elaborating upon his own 'smoothness' at the time.

"What—oh."

Quick learner indeed, Light Yagami.

L turned the puzzle piece over in his fingers. The back was plain cardboard, just like those of its brethren, and the front was immaculately white but for another meaningless black mark.

Mello frowned. "Why would a kidnapper drag his victim through the Hellspawn Grandma's Library of Doom?"

Matt frowned, too, such that the pair of them were scowling in perfect unison. "Stopping to refuel the sketchy black van?" he suggested.

"The nearest station is half a mile away," Mello muttered pensively.

"Your sketchy black van theory is full of holes," Matt decided.

"Your _face_ is going to be full of holes if you don't shut the big one in the middle," Mello retorted.

L pocketed the puzzle piece. "What I wonder," he mused, "is whether that's all we're supposed to find here…"

"…or whether that's too easy?" Light finished.

Moved by a strange and unsettling instinct, L followed the laminated neon paper signs to the children's section. A towheaded boy filled one of the four low plastic chairs at the colorful table, engrossed in his study of Theodor Geisel's unexpected insights. On the tabletop, just beyond the brightness of the picture book, lay two books of a rather different sort—the top, a copy of _The End Is Near: A Photographic History of Prophetic Pessimists_; beneath it, a puzzle book that allowed the reader to assemble every letter of the alphabet.

In the first double-fold of the latter there lay a simple map. L unfolded it to find a clear, uncomplicated depiction of the layout of the region—hand-drawn, with a few notable sites picked out, the general locations of parks and other vaguely unspecific features hazily outlined.

"He's close, then?" Light remarked, peering over his shoulder.

L wished it wouldn't be so awkward to tell Light just how much he appreciated the young man's acuity—how wonderful it was not to have to explain.

Unfortunately, "Thank you for having such a capable brain" would have given a slightly different impression than the one he was hoping for.

He really needed to work on that whole creepy problem.

"There is a good probability of it, yes," he confirmed. He examined the cramped handwriting delineating the tributaries to the creek. "I suppose we should visit as many locations as we can think of within this larger radius, since he seems to have placed only a few of them."

"What," Light replied, slightly bewilderedly, "and collect a whole puzzle's worth of pieces?" He shook his head a little. "I just wish we had something else to go on, you know?"

L handed the map to a curious Mello, who had been clearing his throat loudly for a while now, and picked up the other book between a finger and a thumb. "Perhaps we should read it," he murmured.

Light gathered up the puzzle book, careful not to lose any of the pieces. "Let's check them both out. We can fingerprint them as well, though anyone who would taunt us like this will know better than to have left anything behind."

"Nothing but puzzle pieces," L agreed quietly.

"Puzzle pieces and headaches," Mello sighed.

—

"The plot thickens," Matt remarked, kicking at a piece of gravel and watching it skitter down the walk as they returned to the car. He liked kicking things sometimes, to let off a little steam. This time, though, given that there was enough pent-up steam to power an antique railway for a week, the single piece of gravel didn't do much for him.

"Like a good soup," L acceded absently.

"Let me guess," Light said. "Feeling a little peckish?"

L smiled. "Light-kun's deductive powers are truly astounding," he commented innocently.

Light elbowed him gently, grinning. "Good to know you keep me around for my looks," he sniffed.

"Precisely," L replied. "Just as would Mello-kun's Hellspawn Grandmother Librarian of Doom."

Mello groaned. "Can't we just mock Fluorescence for a while without having to get me into this?"

Light tossed him a grin. "Why should I get to have all the fun?" he asked.

Mello blinked owlishly at him. "Because you're a very special boy, Light," he said solemnly.

"Ah," Light responded, "but you're _extraordinary_."


	11. The Quest of Self–Discovery

_Author's Note: I am a Watari fangirl. Damn frigging straight._

_(Also, I got four and a half hours of sleep last night… which is the reason for the cracky review replies with which I attacked a great many of you. I'm very sorry if anyone is permanently traumatized. XD)_

* * *

XI. The Quest of Self-Discovery

"Does that piece fit with the others?" Matt inquired as they trooped up the stairs.

L paused momentarily to examine it. "No," he answered, pensive. "It doesn't."

"You can tell just by looking?" Mello prompted, sounding intimidated. You could almost see him trying to figure out whether Near could do that—and then deciding, with a wretched resignation, that when it came to puzzles, the Boy Wonder gave the phrase "child's play" a whole new meaning.

L shrugged. "There are only a few places it could fit if it was going to do so; memorizing the edges we have wasn't difficult."

"Especially when he didn't waste any time sleeping," Light put in dryly.

L smiled, pushed open the door to his bedroom, and went to set the newest piece down with the others. Sure enough, Matt saw an orange-tinted outcast.

Mello's brow furrowed. He probably imagined that he looked stern, serious, and scary, though the effect was rather closer to disarmingly adorable.

"What about the map?" he asked.

Light opened the alphabet book to the first page and held it out to Mello, who picked up the map, unfolded it, and spread it on the bedside table next to the trio of puzzle pieces.

"Hmm," he said.

"Which translates to 'I haven't the faintest clue'?" Light supplied.

"Yes," Mello remarked, "if you replace 'the faintest' with something significantly less child-friendly."

Scandalized, Light clapped a hand over his heart. "Do you have something against children?" he demanded.

"Only the friendly ones," Mello replied.

"You are a dastardly fellow," Light decided, sounding as though he found it admirable.

"Thank you," Mello responded. "You're not too lame yourself."

Matt pushed his hands into his pockets and peeked over Mello's shoulder at their best clue. "Where to next, Captain Chaos?" he asked.

"I dunno," Mello murmured. "Somebody pull up Google Maps."

"And look for what?" Light arched an eyebrow. "All kidnappers' headquarters within fifteen miles?"

"Sketchy black van rental, actually," Mello replied nonchalantly. When Light stared, he rolled his eyes—which was becoming a familiar pattern. "Tourist attractions," he amended, "notable shit—hell if I know. The first was here, the next was the _library_—I don't know what kind of psychopath we're dealing with."

L proffered his laptop, upon which a Google-approved map of the area was flecked with multicolored flags picking out points of interest. "I intend to find out," he announced—mildly, but Matt could hear the steel underneath the statement.

It sounded like a Nearnapper getting his ass kicked.

Matt liked the sound of that.

—

L was eighty-five percent certain that the insistent headache probing at the base of his skull and the inexplicable anxiety that had sidled up to accompany it were the result of cake withdrawals.

"Pop by a couple monuments, check for puzzle pieces, and come back here to put 'em together," Light was saying. "Piece of cake."

Ninety percent.

"What are we waiting for?" Light prompted, putting on the Let's Go Face.

Unfortunately, Light had not yet received the memo explaining that the Let's Go Face only worked on Touta Matsuda, who was so close to Let's Going in the first place that galvanizing him wasn't much of an accomplishment.

"A miracle?" Matt attempted.

"Chocolate," Mello answered.

"Cake," L groaned before he could stop himself.

So maybe he _was_ irrevocably addicted to concentrated sugar in staggering quantities.

Everybody had their problems, right?

x

Light was, understandably, excited about the detecting-sightseeing overlap portion of the program. L wished he could share the sentiment, but between the cake issue and the general blow to the dignity that was touring in one's own country, he found himself less than enthusiastic.

"Mopey" would have been a good word for it. Or "wilting like a young plant deprived of water."

Cake, water—you had to have the necessities.

Then again, some extremely misguided people counted sleep as one of those.

As they trekked up the shallow slope of an aggregate pathway, Light compared the map they'd found in the library and the scenic guide he'd rustled up from some dark corner of Watari's office.

"Why would someone make a massive marble statue of some kid reading?" he inquired.

"To celebrate literacy, I would assume," L answered, touching his lip. "Which seems reasonable enough."

Light frowned, looking up at into the paradoxical blank intensity of the statue's gaze. "I can think of better things to do with all that marble and manpower," he decided.

Mello snorted. "Like what, make a statue of _you_?"

Light flashed a smile with a hint of a smirk. "That," he confirmed, "and things like housing projects."

Mello turned to Matt, pulling a horrified face. "He's going all beauty queen on us now" was the lament.

Sagely Matt nodded. "Next it'll be a wish for world peace, shortly followed by the swimsuit competition."

Mello made a point of gagging, and Light made a point of rolling his eyes.

"Really, though," Mello continued once he'd finished a detailed vomiting-into-the-trashcan pantomime. "You can't ask logical questions like 'Why'd they make this statue?' around here. People in this area just do and make crazy shit for no real reason."

There was a pause. Light opened his mouth.

"And no," Mello preempted, "I was not trying to be ironic and insult my benefactor. Wammy's a pimp and don't you forget it."

"Not literally, I should hope," Light commented dryly.

Mello considered him. "You know," he remarked, "I'd be within my rights to kill you for that."

L sighed inwardly. Mello was getting cranky. How long had it been since the last chocolate bar?

Light waved his hands peaceably. "I'm kidding," he promised. "Watari's gotten me out of a whole lot of tight spots since we started working together. I respect him a great deal."

"Good," Mello sniffed. "'Cause the _psycho _is the one down the road a ways. That guy is _batshit_ crazy, man. Some kind of schizophrenic or something—just up and bought a castle, and he's a hermit most of the time, then he has these parties every weekend so loud we can hear 'em from Wammy's."

"The best is the clubs, though," Matt put in, grinning.

"Good point," Mello conceded, his face lighting up as well. "Friggin' hilarious—the town's practically cursed. I don't think a club has ever lasted more than six months, and most of them don't make it to one."

"Great for us," Matt remarked, clambering absently up onto the base of the statue. "We go, get in trouble, get kicked out, get banned, and stay at home and hate on clubs for a while. By the time we're ready to go out again, we go back to the same place, and it's a different club where they don't know us yet."

L had to admit that it did sound like a pretty solid strategy.

"Works like a charm," Mello informed them, smiling like a cat.

L considered the monstrous marble child towering over them. If any of the monuments was to conceal a puzzle piece, surely it would be this one. "Is there anything up there?" he asked Matt, who was currently climbing the folds in the behemoth boy's sleeve.

"Nothing but pigeon crap and a pretty nice view," Matt reported dutifully.

"At least it's functional as a pigeon crap receptacle," Light muttered.

Mello clicked his tongue. "Mister Negativity," he reprimanded.

L frowned, tapping his lip. "This is the last of the monuments within the area on the map, correct?"

Light nodded, then glanced at Mello. "To prove my propensity for optimism," he announced, "I've got a way to make sure this trip isn't a total waste."

Mournfully Mello shook his head. "You're missing the point, Lightbulb," he sighed. "The joy is in the _journey_, not the destination. It's in the _quest_ of _self-discovery_ and _understanding_—"

Before Mello could predict the back covers of any more self-help books, Light cleared his throat and produced a digital camera from his pocket. He motioned to his three companions. "Go stand in front of the literate boy." He considered the chain, musing. "Yeah, that'll reach…" After a moment, when nobody moved, he glanced up from his scrutiny of the camera buttons. "What is it?" he prompted.

"No can do, Light-o," Matt explained slowly from where he'd perched on the edge of the massive stone page like a rather unconventional bookmark. "We don't do pictures."

"Or we do," Mello amended, "and we burn 'em all afterward."

L took a deep breath and tried to smile without cringing.

It was a lost cause.

"It would be particularly ill-advised," he added tentatively, "to hand photographs to a suspect in the Kira case."

Light looked even more wounded that he'd anticipated. "Still?" he managed. "After all this time? After all the opportunities I've had to kill you violently in your sleep?"

He seemed to be aiming for good-humored, but what sounded like a taint of real resentment stole into his voice, poisoning the words. L winced harder still.

"It's very difficult to be a hundred percent certain of anything, Light-kun," he replied, softly and carefully, knowing that he was backpedaling and powerless to stop it.

Light looked at the ground, his voice low. "What about all the people you've convicted over the years? You condemned all of them to prison and worse—what, on ninety percent surety?"

"I didn't say it was impossible," L corrected gently, wanting for a reason he couldn't fully explain to reach out for Light's shoulder, clenching his fists against it. "I said it was very difficult."

Light glanced at the book cradled in the statue's tremendous hands, as if it held all the answers. Matt, still balanced on the edge, shifted uncomfortably.

"But it's impossible," Light concluded flatly, "to be a hundred percent sure that I'm not Kira."

L could offer him nothing more or less than a sad smile.

Silence reigned tyrannically for a long moment.

Then Mello and impatience, his second-in-command, staged a sudden coup.

"To hell with you guys," he said. "I need some frigging _chocolate_."

With that, he strode down the pathway that led back to the parking lot, leather glinting in the sunlight.

Matt slipped down and started after him, shrugging and smiling cautiously at L and Light. "Can't argue with that logic," he decided.

When the footsteps were fading, L looked at Light. His companion was watching the way the others had gone.

"I _have_ been wanting cake all day," L murmured.

Light-kun mustered up an impressively steady smile.

"Are you a hundred percent certain?" he asked.

L smiled back. "No," he answered. "A hundred and ten percent."


	12. Like a Hurricane

_Author's Note: Sorry in advance; I'm an art snob. And by "art snob," I mean "Renaissance chauvinist." XD_

_Oh, GOD, what a late update. I was wrapping Christmas presents and completely forgot. I sorries! :( And I will go reply to reviews now. XD_

_And now please __open gutter and insert mind._

* * *

XII. Like a Hurricane

When, after another long night of puzzling over puzzle pieces, L and Light progressed down the hall to Matt's and Mello's room the next morning, the door was closed. Music was playing, the throbbing beat resonating through the wood, and even as L lifted his hand to knock, voices rose over it.

"God, Matt, this is impossible!"

"It's fun," Matt replied calmly. "And it's easy. If you give it a chance, you'll like it."

Light looked mortified. L blinked.

"You're—wait, what the _hell_—?"

"That wasn't hard enough."

"How the hell am I supposed to know how hard to do it?"

"It's easy."

"I think we've established—"

"Look, if you'll shut up and do it, this'll be over faster, and then—"

"Don't _rush_ me—"

"I'm not!"

"You are! You talked me into this, and now you're rushing me! Look, I'm just not as good at this stuff as you are!"

"You just need to practice!"

"Well, it's not any fun practicing with _you_!"

L took a deep breath, crossed one set of fingers behind his back, and knocked sharply with the other.

"Stop the—" Mello began.

"I _know_, shush—"

Someone snapped the music off, and the sudden silence was cowing.

"Who is it?" Matt called.

"It's us," L replied slowly upon noticing that Light did not appear to be prepared for speech just yet.

"Oh!" Matt replied cheerfully. "Come on in!"

As L reached for the doorknob, Light seized upon his sleeve, a deer-in-the-headlights inclination in his eyes.

"Are you sure—?" he managed.

L raised his eyebrows, ignored his lingering doubts, and opened the door.

Matt was lounging in an armchair by a dusty boom box, and Mello was sitting on the bed nearby, scowling petulantly at the handheld game in his lap.

"Oh!" Light gasped. "You were just—" He blushed heartily, rustling up a nervous laugh. "Ah, hahaha… of course you were… just… yeah."

Mello glanced at him. "Christ, Lightbulb," he said, smirking now. "What'd you think we were doing, having crazy, steamy-hot animal sex all over the floor?"

L noticed that Matt's face abruptly went the same approximate color as his hair.

Light sputtered. "Forgive me if it _sounded_ like an orgy in here," he responded.

Mello's eyes lit up. "Orgy, my dear Incandescence? I believe an orgy requires three or more. You can be invited next time, if you'd like."

A slightly greenish tint infiltrated the pink that had invaded Light's cheeks. "Tempting as the offer is," he responded crisply, "I think I'll have to pass."

Mello snorted. "Your loss."

—

Mello was having a good day.

Matt wasn't. And he kind of wanted to spread it around.

He knew that wasn't right; knew that it certainly wasn't a good approach to solving the problem; knew it was stupid and childish, and he should slap himself hard enough to leave a mark; but nothing helped a bad mood like inflicting it on others. Misery loved company like Mello loved Ghiradelli—that was, so much that it was barely measurable with human instruments.

They were trolling the local art museum today, as if they'd find a cache of puzzle pieces among the subtle benches, the kitchen-sink sculptures, the incomprehensible paintings, and the other assorted eyesores that were burning Matt's retinas despite his orange-tinted safety barrier.

Mello was having fun attracting mortified looks from unsuspecting modern art aficionados who had made the grave error of choosing today to get their fix of pretentiousness, but Matt didn't feel like getting stared at right now. It didn't happen often—he'd gotten accustomed to the 'extraordinary' factor that had long since permeated just about every aspect of his existence—but sometimes, he just wished he could go unnoticed for once.

Rather than being, you know, the guy in the stripes, with the goggles, next to the scandal-waiting-to-happen that was Mello.

None too gently, he elbowed the scandal in question, who was posing suggestively with hands on hips, tossing his hair over his shoulder at intervals and reveling in the faint murmurs about leather, hooligans, and the fate of the world that emanated from the clusters of huddled patrons.

"I'm going out for a smoke," Matt told him.

Mello smirked, an eyebrow flicking upward to disappear into the fringe of fool's gold that lined the familiar face. "Can't handle me for too long without a break?" he purred. "I completely understand. Come back when you're ready, Tiger."

Matt didn't deign to reply to that.

Or to the horrified stares.

For all its insipid attempts at cultural superiority in the showcasing of tin can manglers and prolific paint splatterers, the museum had a nice, plain, modest lawn out the back. It was there that Matt retreated to tap out a cancer stick and sacrifice his lungs on the nicotine altar.

It was this and the games, he reflected, letting the tar settle on his tongue, tasting the sweet-sour air and drawing progressively deeper breaths of it. He was a man of two vices, neither of them vicious; both, unfortunately, expensive enough to curb any notions he might have had of excess. Mowing the vast Wammy's yards (shirtless, in the hopes of a tan and the invariable acquisition of a sunburn), hacking for small-time operations whose victims wouldn't cry foul loud enough to be heard, and the occasional Super Smash Bros. tournament weren't lucrative enough to support a pack a day, which Matt supposed was a good thing in the long run.

He blew smoke, the chemicals subduing him as always, fulfilling their pledge in a way people never did. What was it they'd used to say, sticking their tongues out at each other so vehemently that the words were practically indistinguishable?

"Cat in the Hat, that's that"?

…it had been much more scathingly witty at the time.

When he'd sucked the last morsels of sanity out of the cigarette, Matt tossed it to the pavement and ground it out under his toe. An ash-ember trail smeared across the sidewalk in a gentle curve, the crumpled cigarette lying, forsaken, at a halfhearted tangent.

Now all they had to do was take this square of cement, frame it, and stick it in the museum. They could call it "Metaphor for Life in Litter."

..._Ganondorf_, he was cynical today.

Matt bent to retrieve the broken body of the cigarette and sidled over to flick it into the decorative ashtray column a ways down the wall. Doric, was it?

He'd been a Greek deity (Mattelius, he had decided; the god of video games) for Halloween one year, and Mello had gone around calling him Doric—Doric as in _dork_.

Rolling his eyes at the mere recollection, Matt deposited the cigarette butt into the grit-filled cemetery with its fellows.

He was considering having a moment of silence—if he'd had time to think about it, he would have realized that he'd been silent this whole time anyway—when he saw the white puzzle piece peeking shyly from among the cigarette carnage.

"Hell," he said.

He paused. That wasn't enough.

"Son of a _bitch_," he amended.

Better.

—

"It's probably a statement expressing his disdain for these finger-paintings they're passing off as art," Matt was hypothesizing, his own fingers curling and uncurling as if they itched for another cigarette. "Otherwise, he'd have put the important thing here, with all this pseudo-art crap, because that would make them important, too."

L noticed a few museum-goers' heads turn at the comment, but there wasn't time to appease or apologize.

…and to be terribly honest, he agreed with Matt.

"What's worrying," Mello cut in, "is that the Nearnapper's following us around—or _leading_ us around."

"That," L murmured, "or we wax predictable."

"Think about it," Mello went on. "To put these things in public places? He'd have to do it just before we showed up if he wanted to be sure no one else would take 'em before we got here."

Light gave Mello a mistrustful look. "Why should we trust _your_ theory?" he inquired.

Mello returned a devilish grin. "Because I am awesomeness incarnate with a side-dish of sex."

An elderly couple was staring at them. L pretended he didn't notice.

Matt adjusted his goggles innocently. "Or you're creepiness incarnate with a side-dish of pervert," he suggested.

Mello scowled at him. "Whose side are you on?" he demanded.

Calmly Matt smiled. "The highest bidder's," he replied equably.

Mello glanced sidelong at Light. "What's he bribing you with?"

Matt's thin smile went thinner still, and his eyes were slightly hooded.

"Crazy, steamy-hot animal sex all over the floor," he answered.

There was a long pause in which a few other visitors made strangled noises, Matt's eyes glimmered, and Mello's mouth hung open.

Then, of course, the boy with the leather livery recovered.

"Aaauuuugh," he moaned, pressing the heels of both hands to his eyes. "The images—get them out of my _head_—"

"Can we go home now?" Light whimpered.

"Can," L confirmed bewilderedly, "and will."

—

"I don't think I like modern art," Ryuzaki remarked absently as he adjusted the rearview mirror.

"That's because it blows like a hurricane," Mello agreed, uncharacteristically docilely.

"I will concede that it is _artistic_," Ryuzaki mused, putting the car into gear and pulling out of the parking lot, "in that at least some of it would require a great deal of skill to assemble. But I don't find it beautiful."

"That's because it's uglier than yo mama on a bad day," Mello acceded cheerfully.

That was more like it.

"How do you define beauty, then?" Light prompted, intrigued now.

Ryuzaki took a moment to consider, his grand gray eyes on the road that stretched before them, his left thumb rising to his lips. "Beauty," he decided at last, "is the world, accurately depicted at its finest and most wondrous."

As the others attempted to process the idea, Ryuzaki paused, thought, and then corrected: "And cake."

Light grinned. "Beauty is cake, cake beauty—that is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know?"

Ryuzaki grinned slowly behind his thumb. "Very good, Light-kun," he replied.


	13. Fingerprints

_Author's Note: Thirteen chapters and nothing of value has been said. That is the way we ROLL._

_The end of this chapter was one of the first things I wrote for this fic. Just a useless factoid for your edification._

_Late update because of a Shakespeare final! D: "But break, my heart, for I must hold my pen…"_

* * *

XIII. Fingerprints

When they returned to Wammy's, there was a small cardboard box on the doorstep, stamped and addressed to "Extraordinary Children" in a prickly penmanship. Matt found himself nominated to collect it, so he took it in two gloved hands and led the way over the threshold to the kitchen, where he placed it on the table.

He then went to the cupboard for the replenished supply of Cocoa Puffs—a curt Post-It to Roger had solved that problem—and set the box on the tabletop next to the newly-acquired package, such that he and Mello could sit idly munching on chocolaty puffballs while L and Light went to retrieve their portable fingerprinting kit.

"What are we doing here?" Mello asked after a long silence broken only by contemplative crunching.

Matt blinked. "Eating," he answered.

"Dipshit," Mello muttered petulantly.

"Well, what direction are you trying to go?" Matt prompted. "The 'Why do we presume we can help the greatest detective in the known universe and the frighteningly brilliant sociopath that is Light Ya-origami?' 'Why are we here on Earth, and what is our purpose in existing?' Or 'Why, precisely, did Wammy let us into this crazy place knowing we'd be as wild and obnoxious as we unabashedly are?'"

Mello looked slightly dazed. "Hell with it," he decided. "Never mind."

"Ah," Matt replied, grinning, "but I can answer all of those questions. One, because we're idiots; two, because we got dropped in this pit, and now we're stuck here; and three…" He paused. "Actually, I can't figure out three. Keeps me up at night."

Mello raised an eyebrow. "'Pit'?" he repeated. "You're quite the ray of sunshine today."

"I do so try to enrich your existence," Matt returned. "I'm glad you appreciate my efforts."

Mello pointed a slender leather-encased finger at him. "I'll appreciate your ass straight to the curb if you're not careful."

"Bite me," Matt retorted.

"Coat yourself in chocolate, and I will," Mello countered.

Matt stood, went to the fridge, opened it, and took out the chocolate syrup.

Mello's eyes went wide enough for a good, long look at their verdant depths. There was poetry inscribed there, in flowing purple letters that spread their tendril-serifs wide. Wretched, sappy, sopping poetry it was, but that was the only kind Matt knew how to scrawl out in fits of earnest, childlike passion anyway…

And then he burned it all, of course. He couldn't let anyone get their hands—or worse, their _eyes_—on that stuff.

Mello was still staring at the syrup in horror. "I wasn't _serious_!" he howled.

Matt shrugged and hefted the bottle. "I don't know if there's enough to do justice to your request anyway."

Mello made a face. "Bring it here," he ordered.

When Matt obliged, Mello shoved a handful of Cocoa Puffs into his mouth, squirted a generous quantity of chocolate syrup in after them, and then began, quite contentedly, to chew.

Matt cringed, but before he could vomit, protest, or attempt to negotiate both at once, L and Light reentered the room and fell upon the cardboard cube perched on the tabletop.

Well, Light fell upon it; L fell upon a fat piece of cake that he retrieved, possibly from a hidden compartment that only he could access, from the refrigerator.

On his prize's behalf, L shot Light a concerned look as the latter started dusting for prints.

"I'll be careful," Light pledged, grinning a little.

"Thank you," L murmured, smiling slyly back. "I should hate to find out whose fingers have been all over my stomach lining."

"The world may never know," Light replied blithely.

After a short struggle, Mello managed to swallow the last of his ungodly concoction.

"You getting anything, Headlamp?" he inquired.

The conscious decision not to rise to the jibe was visible crossing Light's face. "Negatory, Captain Chocohol," he reported.

"What kind of cop are you?" Mello sighed.

"Light-kun is a very effective law enforcement officer," L responded before Light could open his mouth.

Mello put his feet up on the table, grumbling, "You could at least bring donuts."

L smiled faintly. "Donuts sound truly heavenly," he remarked, "but perhaps we should try not to get distracted. If there are no fingerprints, Light-kun—which doesn't surprise me; whoever's behind this has been exceedingly careful so far—might you very cautiously open the box?" Another flicker of a smile toyed with his lips. "And while I assume it contains nothing more or less than puzzle pieces, given that we are dealing with a confirmed psychopath, I would not recommend shaking it to see."

Armed with some scissors disinterred from the depths of a nearby drawer, Light rolled up his sleeves, slung the chain over his shoulder, and leaned down to the intricate task of freeing the contents of the box. He licked his lips, tossed the hair out of his eyes, and then touched the end of the opened scissors' blade to the packing tape that held the two top flaps together.

Then his phone rang.

Matt would have expected Light to be an actual-ring sort of person, or even an only-vibrate kind of person. But what sang out of his pocket was a tinny, metallic, truly scarring:

"_I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie wo-orld; life in plastic—it's fantastic!"_

"This is _not_ my ringtone!" Light shrieked, snatching the phone from his pocket and staring at in horrified disbelief. "I don't even _have_ a ringtone; I keep it on silent just in case—"

"I can't _imagine_ how that could happen," Mello commented innocently.

Light rounded on him, eyes blazing. "_You_—!"

"Answer the phone, Light-kun," L interjected quickly.

Stifling what might have been a feral scream, Light flipped the phone open and pressed it to his ear. "Hi, Dad," he gritted out.

Suddenly the linoleum looked awfully interesting.

"Funny story, actually," Light was saying, forcing a halfhearted laugh. "I'm in, uh, England, at the moment. Yeah. England. Funny, huh?"

There was a long pause underpinned by what sounded, garbled as it was by the phone speaker, like the beginning of a lecture at top volume.

"Dad!" Light protested. "I'm almost twenty years old; I can take a trip to England if I want to! It's for a case! …what? I'm helping Ryuzaki. Yeah. We had to hop on a plane; time is of the essence and—well, you hardly ever stop by anym—what?"

Light's aura, such as it was, transitioned abruptly from one of manic explication to bewilderment with a hint of resignation. "Still?" he sighed. "What does that even _mean_?" There was another muted reply on the other end of the line, and Light rubbed his forehead. "Yeah, got it. Thanks, Dad. I'll call you later. Tell Mom and Sayu I love them. You, too. 'Bye."

He snapped the phone shut and shoved it back into his pocket, shaking his head.

Words had an unexpected and immovable power, and Matt figured that was why none of them asked the question that had slithered into all of their minds: _What's it like to talk to your father on the phone?_

Light turned to L, who had his hands folded placidly in his lap, his face perfectly impassive.

"Higuchi's still raving," Light announced. "Apparently he just says the same thing over and over—'Everyone who touched it should be dead.'"

L picked up his cake fork in one hand, the fingers of the other rising to his lips as usual. "Touched what?" he murmured.

There was a pause.

"Bow chicka _bow_ wow," Mello put in.

Matt itched at where his goggles strap was sitting uncomfortably. "Who's this Higuchi guy?" he asked. "And why does he want everybody dead?"

"A subsidiary Kira we tracked to the Yotsuba group," L murmured, attempting to capture a wayward bit of frosting on one of the tines of the fork. "When we trapped him in his car, he set… what we think might have been some sort of… killing notebook… on fire. He was shouting about how it would be better just to die, but he only had minor burns, and now the real Kira has been quiet for months, and we can't get anything remotely comprehensible out of Higuchi."

"Sounds like you've got a closed case on your hands," a voice remarked calmly.

Matt turned to discover Linda sauntering through the door, sketchbook tucked under one arm. She made a beeline for the refrigerator and stuck her head into it.

"I've figured out why you're the world's greatest detective, L," she declared.

"Light-kun," L noted, "this is Linda. Linda-chan, Light Yagami. Have you?"

"Pleasure," Linda decided into the refrigerator, "and yes. It's because you can find evidence of cake activity amongst the whole lot of nothing that exists in this kitchen." She retrieved her head, joined them at the table, and smiled contentedly at Light where he was staring at her. "Though I'm certainly not as qualified as you are," she told him, "it really does sound like the case has gone cold. Months of nothing?" She turned her attention to L. "And if Kira starts acting up again, you can always reassert the handcuff rule, can't you?" She switched back to Light again. "Can I draw you?" she inquired.

Light blinked, apparently unaccustomed to the machinegun-fire rapidity of Wammy Kids' musings. "Um," he managed, "sure…"

"Thank you," Linda replied, flipping past the cover and a few pages flooded with intricate doodles and perceptive sketches. "I saw you the other day and really wanted to, but I thought I should get your permission. You're very pretty."

Mello had just crammed a handful of Cocoa Puffs into his mouth. Abruptly and enthusiastically, he started choking on them, pounding on his own chest almost as an afterthought, tears of suppressed mirth sparking in his eyes.

Matt went over and absently commenced slamming a fist repeatedly against his back, though it didn't seem to be helping much.

Smiling with the I'm-up-to-something-but-you-can't-prove-it air so dreadfully familiar within Wammy's walls, Linda bent over the paper and went at it with her charcoal pencil.

Mello recovered, his face flushed, his burgeoning grin spreading in serendipitous joy, and looked at Linda as though he wanted to plant grateful kisses all over her face and see what wonders sprouted.

_As though_ he wanted to. Not like he _did_ want to.

Not that Matt was jealous or anything. That would be absurd and ridiculous and far, far too difficult for him to field in the middle of a mystery. There were bigger things to worry about than illogical crushes that he may or may not have been harboring for a frighteningly long time.

"Can you raise your left hand?" Linda asked Light.

Too stunned to argue, he obliged.

"Thanks," she said. "Chains are a little tricky."

—

Eventually, Light's artistic tormenter departed, chirping something about shading and touching up before she showed anyone. Light flopped down in a free kitchen chair again, trying not to notice the mocking grin that had taken up residence on Mello's face, possibly permanently.

He hoped that the rent was a bitch and a half, resulting in a summary and humiliating eviction.

"What a pretty boy," Mello sighed happily.

"_Pretty_," Light repeated, too desolate to snipe back.

Ryuzaki's smile was one of unobtrusive amusement—the kind that usually stopped by for a visit, the kind you had to get accustomed to and comfortable with in order to have a hope of understanding the nuanced subtlety of its owner's emotional inclinations.

"It's a distinctly positive aesthetic assessment," Ryuzaki noted guilelessly.

"Maybe if you were to ditch the Kinky Chain," Mello suggested innocently, "people wouldn't be quite so interested in your _aesthetic_ _value_—if you know what I _mean_."

Light hadn't needed the hint.

"I think Linda's right, though," Matt contributed thoughtfully. "If there's nothing happening with the Kira case… you can always keep an eye on it and go back to it full-force if anything comes up."

Light wasn't entirely sure why he suddenly wanted to beat a hasty retreat—deny the evidence, erase the phone call, pretend that Kira was out there and at it again—

Or maybe he did know, and had known, in the periphery of his peerless mind, for a long time—and he just didn't dare allow the amorphous truth to coalesce into an identifiable shape.

"A compelling argument," Ryuzaki murmured, gathering himself to his bare feet. "Perhaps it is time that the Kinky Chain was retired from the line of duty."

Why the qualms? Light heard his pulse throbbing in his ears as they trooped up the stairs towards their—towards _Ryuzaki's_—bedroom. Why the misgivings? Why not a tidal wave of relief at the prospect of freedom at last? For it was freedom—freedom from Ryuzaki's sleeping habits or the lack thereof; freedom from struggles to dress and cake runs at midnight. It was the freedom to detach from everything that Ryuzaki was hour by hour and day by day, the freedom to separate and exist independently instead of as half of a pair. Wasn't that what he wanted?

They reached the landing and progressed into the room, where Ryuzaki paused to look at him. "Just a moment, Light-kun," he promised mildly.

Matt and Mello watched shamelessly from the doorway as Ryuzaki crossed to his suitcase, unzipped it, and began pawing through his belongings.

"Leave it at home, did you?" Light remarked casually.

"Thankfully not," Ryuzaki replied, and somehow the familiar absent-minded calm felt dismissive this time.

Spider's-leg fingers found the box of candy and, shortly, the cookies-and-cream bar Light had set aside days before when Ryuzaki had looked perturbed at his selection of it. Meticulously, Ryuzaki unwrapped the foil and laid it on the bed, and then he took the bar in two hands and snapped it in half.

A tiny silver key smeared with white chocolate tumbled to the crumpled foil, which crinkled forlornly.

"Mello-proof," Matt whispered.

"Genius," Mello breathed in agreement.

Ryuzaki approached, smiling still, but his eyes were distant—reserved, or just disinterested? He took Light's wrist in one strangely strong hand and applied the key with the other, holding Light's little silver savior in the usual halfhearted, two-fingered grip.

The cuff conceded, opened, and fell into Ryuzaki's waiting hand, revealing a ring of skin chafed, healed, re-chafed, and healed again. Light wrapped his right hand around it, rubbing slowly. His arm felt too light.

He cringed, for a variety of reasons. For once, the pun wasn't foremost among them.

"We'll still be working together closely, Light-kun," Ryuzaki assured him with what might have been a calculated indifference.

Or it might have been something else entirely. With Ryuzaki, with _L_, could you ever really know?

Light shrugged. "Of course," he responded glibly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to take the first chain-free shower I've had in literally months."

Without giving anyone a chance to ask or argue, he gathered his things and sidled into the bathroom, where he shut the door securely behind him and locked it.

He leaned against that door for a long, long moment, trying to sort through the luminescent thoughts flickering in and out of being, licking the crevices of his skull.

They were like puzzle pieces, too, and none of them fit together.

* * *

_Author's Note: Higuchi didn't lose his memories of the Note when he destroyed it because a little piece is still languishing in Light-o's watch.  
_

_(Thanks again, Eltea, my darling and my plot-hole-patcher. XD)_


	14. Sensibilities

_Author's Note: Okay… this is probably just mid-final exams overreaction, so ignore me if you like, but I've just been noticing—and I'm not trying to point fingers, and I don't mean to accuse anyone—that a fair amount of people have been saying this fic is cracky. It's usually said in a positive way, but I'm kind of unsure how to take that. I put a lot of work into this sucker, and I spent a lot of time making it something I was pleased with and proud of, and I took it seriously, at least as far as commitment goes. And it's not like there aren't solemn parts to it, right? End of last chapter Emofest, anyone? XD_

_So I guess what I'm asking is—is it "crack" because it's funny? I'd like to think most of the cast is relatively in-character (yes, even Mello! I don't think it's too terribly far-fetched to think that if he'd spent those years bumming around with Matt and Near instead of getting beaten down on the streets of L.A., he'd be the kind of crazy that jumps on baggage carousels instead of the kind that blows up buildings he's in the middle of. XD)_

_There's no need for anyone to apologize or anything, and I'm not trying to alienate anyone; I just want to understand what exactly is at work here. XD Please feel free to weigh in, or berate me, or just ignore me if that strikes your fancy. Whatever the case, thanks for sticking with me this far, and have a chapter for your pains. x)_

_So… ah… my original A/N: Making apple pies with my mom cured my block. Who'd'a thunk?_

_Finally, some DRAMA! And let it be stated that I do NOT condone tickling. DX_

* * *

XIV. Sensibilities

Mello stretched luxuriously, hearing his spine crack with a satisfying snap like that of a crisp chocolate bar, glorying in the breathless fragility of the pale dawn light fragmented by the half-broken blinds. He pushed blond strands out of his eyes and glanced over at Matt—who, of course, was still sleeping, rusty hair splattered across the pillow like a bloodstain.

Damn Matt and his sexy hair and his anti-morning sensibilities.

Idly Mello dressed, cursing the recalcitrant leather softly until it conceded to slide over his thighs and into place. He had somehow managed not to wake the Orange Baron, who still had his face interred in the pillow, so Mello fell back on Plan B for the morning—not _that_ kind of Plan B; oh, _God_—and went to bother L.

The superlative sleuth was sitting on his bed, knees drawn up, staring almost uncertainly at a collection of puzzle pieces that didn't match.

Mello flopped down on the floor, leaning against the nightstand. "It's absolute shit, isn't it?"

L smiled a little. "I can think of a great deal of things befitting that description, Mello-kun," he noted calmly. "To which exactly do you refer?"

"This case," Mello sighed. "I mean, all we've got is what, a map of not much more than topography and half a puzzle? And Near's off God knows where—" He cut himself off, swallowing the rest of the sentence. His life's savings, paltry as they were after chocolate binges too numerous to count, said that _"Having God knows what done to him"_ wasn't going to eradicate the faint, fragile vulnerability glinting in L's eyes.

Mello hated seeing it there. It wasn't right. If L broke, the stars would fall, the sun would fade, and the Earth would spiral out of its orbit and plunge off into the endless, frigid black oblivion of space, where they'd all shrivel and die ignominious deaths.

Which was a cheery thought, to be sure.

Then again, there were plenty of cheery thoughts in the world that he could choose from.

"Want to go down to the kitchen and see if Roger got cake?" he asked.

L's eyes lit up. "Yes," he said.

x

When they reached the linoleum-lined haven they sought, however, an unexpected intruder had claimed the space.

Light was slicing a half-dozen peeled apples and tossing the fruits of his labor—damn it; Mello had been spending too much time with Matt—into a bowl. He glanced up at them and smiled a little.

"Good morning."

"What are you doing?" Mello asked immediately.

Light raised his eyebrows. "I'm making apple pie," he answered, as if making apple pie at nine in the morning in an orphanage in England was the most natural thing in the world.

L gazed at the enterprising pastry chef as if he'd just been introduced to God.

Mello wasn't quite so impressed.

"Apple pie?" he repeated. "What, practicing to be an American housewife?"

A bit of pink leapt to Light's cheeks. "If I make it now," he explained slowly, as if speaking to a very contrary five-year-old, "then after cooling for a few hours, it'll be ready just after lunchtime."

"Genius," L murmured.

Light noticed Mello's critical expression. "What?" he prompted.

Unconcernedly, Mello shrugged. "If you're going for the domestic diva look," he remarked, "I'm sure we've got some aprons around that'd match your shirt."

Light rolled his eyes and turned to L. "You guys can help if you want," he offered.

Mello clasped his hands under his chin, beaming. "Can I coordinate the bedspreads and the drapes?"

Light ignored him.

"What do we do next, Light-kun?" L was inquiring interestedly, peering at the array of supplies laid out on the counter.

Light finished with the apples, ran his hands under the tap, and toweled them dry before turning to the row of little jars standing like sentinels by the flour. "Now," he answered, "we spice things up a little."

Oh, so it was okay when _he_ made horrible puns? Mello saw how it was.

Apparently blissfully unaware of his heinous hypocrisy, Light handed L a measuring cup. "Can you get me a fourth of a cup of white sugar and a fourth of a cup of brown sugar?" he asked.

Light then made the mistake of attending to the cinnamon and nutmeg rather than monitoring his assistant.

Mello resisted the urge to smack himself in the forehead.

When Light turned again, L was proffering a measuring cup heaped with a mound of sugar that spilled over the sides, little grains raining onto the countertop.

Light blinked. "I honestly can't believe I didn't see that coming," he declared.

As the most clueless genius the world had ever seen took the measuring cup and attempted to even out the quantity, L remarked mildly, "Light-kun should try cooking with Mello-kun."

That was his cue. Brightly, Mello put in, "I think this chocolate needs more chocolate!"

Before long, Light was packing cinnamon-and-nutmeg-and-whatever-else-covered apple slices into what looked to be the bastard child of a roll of tinfoil and a box of graham crackers.

"I didn't know we had pie crusts lying around," Mello noted from where he was loitering, deliberately uselessly, by the table.

"You didn't," Light answered calmly, rearranging a few slices in some indistinguishable way. "I took the liberty of borrowing the car to go to the store this morning."

Mello raised an eyebrow. "Jesus, Lightbulb; how long have you been up?"

Light shrugged and started sprinkling little clods of crust material over the top of his apple pile—er, pie. "Long enough," he replied.

Mello frowned. "So," he drawled, slightly dangerously. "Couple days here, and you think you're qualified to do the shopping? Think you know how this place operates?"

Light finished, washed and dried his hands, and went to one of the cupboards. He opened it, rifled through a few items, and selected one. "Here," he said, tossing the plastic package to Mello. "You guys were all out."

It was a bag of semisweet chocolate chips—_brand name_.

Mello paused.

"You can stay," he decided.

Light grinned to himself, hefted the pie, and smiled apologetically at L. "Think you could get the oven door?"

Momentarily, the luminescent lad was standing back and dusting off his hands, most likely purely for dramatic effect.

—

L usually let others do all the cooking for him, but there was something oddly satisfying about looking at the pie he'd had a hand—or at least a finger—in sitting smugly in the oven, bathed in the rosy orange glow of the heating coils.

Then he noticed that there was a smudge of flour on Light's face, smeared haphazardly along the curve of his cheekbone like war-paint. L made a motion that was half-indication, half-swipe-at-nothing.

"You've got…"

"Ah," Light said, rubbing at his cheek—too low; he missed it entirely.

"Higher."

"Here?" Light adjusted, but not enough.

L saw his hand move. He saw his arm stretch. And then he saw the pad of his thumb touch Light's cheek to wipe off the flour.

Everything went still and silent for a long moment. It took a thousand years to retract his arm, and then a thousand years to lift a faintly-trembling hand to his lips, because he needed that thumb there as an anchor, as a reassurance, as a safety net between the words in his head and the world beyond—

The same thumb that had just wiped flour off of Light's face was now wiping it onto his mouth.

He was not going to survive this. No—he might survive, but he couldn't endure. He wouldn't have to. The universe was a kind place. A black pit would yawn itself into existence just beneath his feet, and he would plop neatly down into it. It would enclose him in its warm, protective darkness for minutes, or hours, or days; however long it took for Light to forget; and then it would open again, and he would reemerge somewhere else, somewhere safe—like his bedroom, where he could lock the door and refuse to undo it for anyone. And he would curl up under the sheets and sleep, and when he awoke, Quillish would have left cake on the nightstand—

Light was still looking at him, and he was still looking at Light, and maybe he was imagining it, or maybe he really could taste the salt of the boy's skin in the flour on his fingertip.

Light's eyes were precisely as they'd always been—vast, endless, and impregnable. Deeper than wells—chasms; caverns, boundless and bright, intricately-interconnected passages leading further and further back to places the mind could barely hope to comprehend. They were beautiful, Light Yagami's eyes. They were so beautiful that sometimes L tried not to see them, because they made him feel like even less.

It was at that moment that Mello cleared his throat extremely loudly.

"Now what?" he prompted.

"Now we wait," Light responded, turning his attention slightly abruptly to the dishes.

Mello scoffed. "Forget _that_" was the verdict. Pushing Light blithely out of the way, Mello bent to rummage through the lower cupboards, straightening when he had a sizeable copper-bottomed pot in either hand. "I'm going to go wake Matt," he declared.

Resolutely, boot treads progressing proudly across the linoleum, Mello departed, possibly to his doom.

Light set the bowls in the sink, left them to soak, and then leaned against the counter, rubbing his eyes. "Hell, I'm tired," he mumbled.

L tilted his head as he considered, smiling a little bit sadly. "You didn't sleep last night, did you?" he inquired.

He phrased it as a question and inflected his voice accordingly, but they both recognized the inherent statement-of-fact quality about it. After so long in each other's company, L sometimes felt there was a current between them, an invisible frequency along which thoughts were transferred.

And then again, there were times he couldn't have guessed Light's mind if the fate of the world depended on it. Two minutes ago, after all, had been one of those occasions.

Light raised his shoulders momentarily and glanced out the window at the gray yard. "It was hard to sleep by myself after all this time. I got kind of used to—" He was blushing now. Light Yagami, the unstoppable, the unbeatable, the unthinkable, was blushing, gently but undeniably. "Well, I got used to hearing you breathe."

L paused. He weighed the possibilities, and then he realized that a bit more awkwardness might tip this conversation to the point of being somehow endearing. "I feel the same way, Light-kun," he confessed.

Hmm. Judging by the lengthy silence, perhaps he'd been wrong.

The period of quiet was riotously interrupted by a loud clanging, which segued into an outraged howl, which broke off into cursing, which was followed by a stampede of feet down the stairs.

Pressing themselves back against the sink, L and Light narrowly managed to avoid being trampled as Matt chased Mello into the kitchen and tackled him to the floor. With sounds like twin gongs, the pots went bouncing across the tiles in the spirit of highly unconventional tumbleweeds, which Matt ignored completely as he straddled Mello and commenced tickling his victim mercilessly.

Accordingly, Mello writhed, screamed fit to shatter eardrums, and put some claw marks in the linoleum.

Near, L reflected, never failed to be moved to reluctant but entirely helpless giggles by a deft set of fingers at his ribs—or to a sadistic grin seeing someone else subjected to it.

This was another reason, added to a virtually boundless list of them, why they needed him back.

Another was that Near could shut Mello up in an average two-point-seven-three seconds. L had yet to encounter another human being with that particular talent.


	15. Relatively Speaking

_Author's Note: …I honestly can't even believe I've managed to stretch this crap out over fifteen chapters. Honestly._

_God, you guys are so nice! XD I say "No apologies necessary,_" _and the next thing I know you__'re all being adorable about it. I am not worthy! XD Part of it is that I got my start in Harry Potter, which, obviously, has a rather different tone in canon, leading to a rather different concept of crack. Anyway... thank you all. :)  
_

_And now... meet Kat, my Wammy Kid. :3 Alien ABC's and I have a small shared stock of them for situations like this. 8D_

_This is about the halfway point in this fic... O_o I__'m not sure whether to be happy or very sad. XD L says one of my favorite things I__'__ve ever had him say, though, so I think I__'__ll be happy. :P  
_

* * *

XV. Relatively Speaking

When Mello had been subdued—and was lying on the floor gasping for breath, tears sliding out of his eyes, weak chuckles bubbling out of his mouth—Matt climbed to his feet and planted both hands on his hips, which were visible due to the fact that his county-issue pajama pants had slid in the throes of battle.

Between him and Mello, that was twice as much midriff as Light wanted to see at this hour of the morning.

Or _ever_.

"Salutations, friends," Matt greeted them. "Would you like to join me in kicking Mello while he's down?"

Mello made an anguished noise of protest and rolled partway over.

"You deserve it," Matt informed him contentedly, nudging at Mello's shoulder with a toe. "You have no respect for the art of sleeping. When we get a museum exhibit, I'm going to make sure security won't let you in even if you beg on your _knees_." He nudged again. "And if you turn that into an innuendo, I'll beat you with a stick."

"_Stick_, eh?" Mello mumbled into the flooring.

Matt went to the table, plucked up the bag of chocolate chips, returned, and dropped it onto Mello's head from waist height.

"_Ow_!" Mello howled. "You _bastard_!"

Matt crouched next to him, smiling sweetly. "I thought you liked chocolate," he remarked innocently.

"Did I say 'chocolate'?" Mello muttered. "I'm sorry. I meant 'your mother.'"

Matt dug a toe into Mello's ribs, reaped the ensuing anguished moan, and looked to Light and Ryuzaki, folding his arms complacently across his chest. "What's on the agenda for today?" he asked calmly.

"Your moth—_uncle_!" Mello cried, recoiling from the foot that Matt raised menacingly.

Ryuzaki paused. "Matt-kun's genealogy aside," he noted, "I thought that we might split into pairs today to facilitate greater productivity." He shifted his weight. "Mello-kun and I will examine a few more locations, and Light-kun and Matt-kun can stay here and utilize their technological aptitude to scrounge up some more information."

Light stared at him.

"Yes, Light-kun?" Ryuzaki prompted hesitantly.

"I think what Lightbulb's incredulous gaze is meant to imply," Matt cut in, "is that the two of you make the least inconspicuous pair of human beings that can possibly be assembled from our collective social circle."

"We will be hiding in plain sight," Ryuzaki responded.

"I really don't think—" Matt began.

Mello clambered to his feet and brushed himself off. "You aren't here to _think_," he announced.

Matt's face darkened. "Fine," he replied, voice clipped. "I'll hack some servers for you. Make me a list."

With that, outward and up the stairs he progressed, with all the pajama-clad, tousle-haired, bare-footed dignity a man could muster.

Mello dusted off his hands. "What's got his Pikachu knickers in a twist?" he inquired.

"Your mother?" Light supplied.

Mello did not look amused.

—

Matt spat.

Moodily he watched the bubbles swirling down the drain. He rinsed the foam out of his mouth, wishing absently and nonsensically that he was _really_ rabid, so that he could bite some people and infect them with brains.

Would that make him a werewolf-zombie?

As he scrubbed at his face, beginning to wonder if he could scrape it right off, heavy footsteps heralded a peremptory knock.

"Hey," Mello called. "Hurry it up. I gotta pee."

Matt snorted and got water up his nose.

"Hold it," he replied.

"I _can't_," Mello wailed.

"Then go find a bush," Matt suggested. "Or Light's bed."

"That's the first place I went, but he's in his room."

"Damn it, Mel." Matt opened the door.

"Christ Amighty," Mello said, apparently as some sort of misguided expression of gratitude, as he strolled towards the toilet, already undoing the laces on his pants. "A good tickle fight will do that for you, won't it?"

Matt splashed water over his face. "Don't you blame this on me."

There was a pause, and then Mello asked, uncharacteristically softly, "Really, Matt. What's wrong?"

It would have been a bit more touching if Mello hadn't been pissing at the time.

Matt met verdant eyes in the mirror, dangerous as it was to do so given the reflective angles involved. He opened his mouth to reply.

Abruptly Mello raised a silencing hand. "No denial. Just spill the beans and let the cat out. You can throw in some other bizarre idioms, too, if you like."

Matt licked his minty-fresh lips. "Fine," he conceded, looking at the countertop. "I don't like being treated like a tool. Hack this, keep an eye on that—I know I'm not _Near_, but I'm not just some kid, either. I don't exactly take joy in doing other people's bidding."

Mello focused on refastening his pants, which was an activity Matt vouched for. "I never really thought about it like that," he admitted quietly.

Matt straightened his damp washcloth on the bar with more force than was entirely necessary. "Most people don't," he answered.

Mello approached to wash his hands, and Matt moved out of the way. Dark green eyes attended the water dripping from their owner's fingertips.

"I don't always say it," Mello remarked. "In fact, I _never_ do, because that would be too touchy-feely altogether—but you're _really_ important to me, Matty-Boy. If nothing else—and there's plenty else; that's the whole point—you're the only reason I'm still sane."

"Relatively speaking," Matt commented.

"Relatively speaking," Mello agreed. "Just… don't forget that. Of course L wants to utilize your 'leet skills in his favor. But that doesn't mean he doesn't care about you personally, too."

"Maybe I'd be better convinced if he handcuffed himself to me," Matt replied.

"Maybe you should handcuff yourself to Light," Mello responded innocently, toweling his hands and sauntering towards the door, "and watch L get jealous of the both of you."

"And you wouldn't?" Matt called after him.

Mello must heard him, but he pretended otherwise.

—

Light folded his arms across his chest, watching Ryuzaki wriggle his feet into his battered sneakers.

"Don't go down any dimly-lit back-alleys," he instructed.

"Yes, Light-kun," Ryuzaki replied.

"Or any well-lit candy aisles."

Ryuzaki looked up and cocked his head. "May we go down dimly-lit candy aisles?" he inquired.

"Better stay away from those, too," Light told him. "Just to be safe."

Ryuzaki smiled. "Is there anything I can do to assure Light-kun that we will not be in danger?"

Resolutely Light shook his head. "In a town where genius kids get 'napped instead of naptime," he answered, "there isn't a thing."

Ryuzaki made a point of considering. "How about if I remind Light-kun of the various occasions upon which I kicked him in the face?" he inquired.

Light opened his mouth and then shut it.

"Just _go_," he said.

"Now Light-kun wishes me to leave?" Ryuzaki prompted, grinning wickedly. "Goodness, but his opinions are variable."

Light raised an eyebrow. "Well, if Mello gets there first, he'll probably want to drive…"

Ryuzaki jammed his right heel into the sneaker and darted out the door. "Goodbye, Light-kun," he called, voice fading as he tripped along down the driveway. "Don't hit Matt-kun if he makes any puns; we like him better intact…"

Light wasn't so sure about that.

x

Contentedly enough, Light settled by one of the bay windows in the library and cracked open his laptop. The machine hummed peacefully, warming his legs, and sunlight bathed his back. He snuggled a little deeper into the lush cushions of the armchair, starting to sift through the data, and released a breath as a satisfied sigh. Everything was just about all right.

Then there was a giggle.

Light's head snapped up. He glanced around. He didn't exactly expect the Wammy Kid-Napper to _giggle_, per se, but you never knew who could be at the heart of a nefarious plot for unlawful Wammy Kid collection—

A head popped up beyond the next chair over. Fortunately, the head in question belonged to a girl with two dirty-blonde braids. She was probably about twelve, was possessed of bright brown eyes, and was grinning at him cheekily.

"Whatcha' doin'?" she wanted to know.

"I'm researching," Light answered.

The girl stood, revealing that she was dressed in a pink tee-shirt and blue jeans, and came a little closer. "Whatcha' researching?" she asked.

Light raised an eyebrow. "I'm helping Ryuz—L," he told her.

The girl drew closer still, tipping her head to one side interestedly. "I thought you said you were researching," she noted.

"I'm researching," he explained, "in order to help L."

The girl drummed her fingers on the armrest of his chair. "What's L need help with?" she inquired.

"We're trying to figure out who took Near," Light said. As soon as the words had left his mouth, he realized that the other children might not be aware that Near had been _taken_, certainly not in such terms, since the knowledge would probably frighten them immensely—

Light's new friend nodded sagely. "A guy tried to take me, once," she informed him unconcernedly. "At the mall. I was with Mr. Wammy and some others, only I got distracted asking the lady at the lotion kiosk some questions, and then this guy said he'd help me find my parents, but I said 'No thank you, I see them just over there' and went to the girls' bathroom to call Mr. Wammy."

Light blinked. "That was a very smart thing to do," he managed.

The girl nodded vigorously. "I was pretty scared." She considered him for a long moment, pursing her lips. "What's your name?" she asked.

"His name's _Light_," a high voice sighed from the doorway.

Light turned unenthusiastically.

"Hi, Fee," the girl with the braids greeted the newcomer cheerfully. "How d'you know?"

"I know, Kat," the new girl announced, "because I heard Mello talking about him." She turned to Light, who imagined it was probably more like 'Mello whining about him incessantly and slandering his good name.' "But he didn't say," this girl, who had auburn curls, blue eyes, and probably fourteen years under her rhinestone-studded belt, went on, "how _handsome_ you were."

Knowing Mello, Light imagined not.

His admirer swept forward and extended a hand to him graciously. Over her shoulder Light saw a variety of faces peeking around the doorframe, all of them belonging to girls in their young teens.

"I'm Fiona," the ringleader purred. "It's _lovely_ to meet you."

Light shook her hand, and she reluctantly released his. "Nice to meet you, too," he responded.

Fiona laid the hand he'd shaken over her heart. "Is that the slightest hint of an accent?" she gasped. "Where are you from, Light?"

"Japan," he answered.

"What part of Japan?" Kat prompted.

"Near Toyko?" Fiona pressed. "I've heard it's _lovely_."

Light wasn't sure what the keyword was, but the flock chose that moment to descend, inundating him with shining, eager eyes and a flood of pastel raiment.

"Where do you go to school?"

"Why are you here?"

"'Light'? What an exotic name!"

"It's _lovely_."

"Is it your birth name?"

"Why'd your parents call you that?"

"Do you have a brother?"

"Do you have a cousin?"

"Do you have a clone?"

"How'd you get so _pretty_?"

Light wondered if that was Linda, but when he looked, he couldn't see her.

In a momentary gap between carefully-crafted hairstyles, he saw Matt meandering down the hall, laptop tucked under his arm. Their eyes met.

_HELP_, Light mouthed.

"Kelp?" Matt asked over the hubbub, grinning. "No, sorry; I don't think sushi's on the lunch menu..."


	16. A Bit Excessive

_Author's Note: This thing is going to be SO dated pretty soon… But in the best way, I hope. XD_

…_maybe they would've gone for Edward Cullen._

_Er, what? I didn__'t say anything.  
_

* * *

XVI. A Bit Excessive

Light Yagami was a genius.

A frigging _genius_, damn it.

As such, he certainly shouldn't have had any trouble distracting a small—if persistent—flock of preteen girls from his apparent godliness.

He thought deification was a bit excessive anyway.

He turned, let his jaw drop, and pointed emphatically out the window.

"Is that the _Jonas Brothers_?" he demanded.

Nobody moved.

Actually, that wasn't strictly true; most of them moved enough to laugh uproariously.

Kat shaded her eyes with a hand, peering out. "No," she said slowly, "but I think I _do_ see Matt and Mello making out in the bushes."

A chorus of ear-splitting squeals and a violent, trampling exodus towards the lawn later, Light glanced at Kat, trying not to look as impressed as he felt.

Modestly, she shrugged. "Everyone's convinced it'll happen one of these days," she explained.

Light considered. "Count me in," he decided.

"Count you in what, Lighbulbasaur?" Matt asked cheerfully, balancing his open computer on his forearm as he strolled in.

"Nothing," Light and Kat replied in unison.

"Sure," Matt acquiesced idly. "Now check _this_ out. That guy with the castle's turning himself into a tourist attraction."

Light raised an eyebrow. "What does that have to do with finding Near?" he inquired.

"Absolutely nothing," Matt responded, setting the laptop down on the coffee table before them and settling on the floor nearby to scroll through the page. "But really—masquerades? Dinner theater? This guy's got it goin' _on_."

"Why would anybody pay good money to go to a party where—" Kat squinted at the screen. "—'you'll be lucky if you encounter your mysterious host'?"

"Why _wouldn't_ you?" Matt asked, eyes gleaming behind the goggles. "How _awesome_ would it be to put together a _masquerade_ costume?"

"About as awesome as Halloween," Kat countered, "which is free."

Matt applied his eyes to the task of rolling sardonically now. "Gimme a break, Kit-Kat."

Kat stuck her tongue out at him. "You're not welcome, Matt," she shot back.

Matt winced. "Never should've taught you to play that game," he noted.

Kat beamed for a moment before turning to Light. "We should probably go," she told him, "before they realize Mello's out and Matt's here."

"Are we hiding from Fiona and Friends?" Matt asked. Upon earning twin nods of confirmation, he remarked pensively, "Well, the pie's probably in danger by now anyw—"

"_Shit, the pie_!" Light howled, shoving his computer heedlessly aside, bounding over the coffee table, and careening into the hall.

When he burst into the kitchen, however, he failed to calculate for the lack of traction, meaning that his socks slid on the linoleum, his feet flew out from under him, and he landed flat on his back, down the breath in his lungs and a nigh-on immeasurable quantity of dignity.

Maybe Ryuzaki had a point about going barefoot.

"Ow," Light managed to gasp.

Footsteps approached, and Watari looked down at him, removing a pair of oven mitts as he did.

"Your pie is safe," he announced. "Are you? Is anything broken?"

Light manipulated all of his phalanges and, finding them in working order, sat up, groaning. "Just my pride," he concluded.

Watari smiled and offered him a hand. "That'll heal," he promised.

When Light had been righted, he regarded his culinary masterpiece, which was perched peacefully on the countertop. "We can't leave it unattended," he mused. "It'd be gone before you could say 'Save a piece for Ryuzaki.'"

Watari hung the oven mitts from the hooks above the stove. "There are two places in the entirety of this establishment that are understood to be sacred," he declared. "The first is my room. The second is L's."

Light frowned. "What about my room?"

"I'm afraid not," Watari told him, shaking his head. "You're fair game. To be terribly honest, you should consider yourself extremely lucky you didn't wake up covered in cockroaches."

Light felt slightly ill at the mere mental image.

"I will be barricading my door from now on," he decided.

Watari smiled thinly. "Excellent choice."

x

After all this time, Light knew very well that the act of stashing his prize in Ryuzaki's bedroom ran the risk of his returning for pie-retrieval only to find the thing completely devoured if the bedroom's occupant got to it before he did.

His options, however, were few.

He put the pie down on the nightstand, stacked a few of the manila folders on the desk, and set them aside to make room for his edible opus. As he lovingly relocated his baby to the center of the desktop, which was more aesthetically pleasing altogether, the corner of a piece of paper caught his eye—_"Love, Linda"_ was scrawled on it in dark pencil. Carefully he moved the other sheets aside.

Now properly shaded and perfected, the sketch of him—a slightly perturbed self, but undeniably his own—was a remarkable likeness.

There were lots of reasons—plenty of reasons—a _plethora_ of reasons—a _metric ton_ of reasons, with a few excuses sprinkled over the top—why Linda might have given the picture to Ryuzaki without so much as showing it to its subject. Maybe L was also secretly the world's three best art critics.

It would be vain to assume that it was the reason he half-wanted, half-feared it would be. Could be. Might be.

Wasn't.

For a long moment, he looked at the drawing, and then he slotted it back into the folder whence it had come. It really wasn't any of his business.

Was it, now?

—

Mello reflected that it must have been a sad—and inevitable—day for capitalism when the town hall acquired a gift shop.

Not that he was complaining.

He moved to sweep the entire stock of Belgian chocolate off of the display counter and into his shopping basket, then paused to glance at L where the man was standing off to the side, gazing pensively at the multicolored toffees.

"What?" he prompted.

"Light-kun recommended that we stay away from candy aisles of any persuasion," he noted.

Mello snorted and swiped the chocolate in. One bar tumbled and tried to escape, but he caught it before it fell. "This isn't a candy aisle," he pointed out. "It's an aisle that happens to have candy in it." He proffered the basket to L.

L accepted it in that odd grip of his and turned to the toffees. "Good point," he murmured.

In the end, the cashier rung them up at a total of twenty-six pounds, and they strutted out weighed down by a delectable burden distributed amongst three bulging plastic bags each.

"A job well-done," Mello decided.

"We made a great deal of progress," L agreed.

"Willy Wonka," Mello pledged, struggling to raise a bag-laden hand high enough to put it over his heart, "would be proud."

"Jealous," L corrected.

x

Matt was playing Tetris when they found him in the kitchen, his bare feet up on the nearest chair. Mello could read it effortlessly in the way his eyes flickered back and forth—he would have recognized that from half a kitchen's width away even if he hadn't noticed the deft fingertips hovering over the arrow keys.

The assumption was summarily confirmed when, as he heard them approach, Goggle Boy hit _P _for _Pause_, minimized the internet window, and then looked up at them innocently.

"Productive trip?" he asked. Before they responded, he caught sight of the bags of candy. "Please tell me Near is in one of those," he said.

L looked slightly startled as he set his portion of their purchases down on the table. "Certainly that would qualify as child abuse, Matt-kun," he noted.

Matt grinned. "Fair enough," he decided. "Did you find anything?"

Mello tossed his share of the plastic bags down next to L's. "Just another puzzle piece, this one between the pages of the guestbook," he reported.

L retrieved the piece in question from his jeans pocket, holding it up between two fingers for scrutiny.

Morosely Matt gazed at it, propping his chin on one hand. "What do we do," he asked., "if we end up with nothing but a bunch of unmatched puzzle pieces?"

"I would rather not progress down that particular avenue of thought, Matt-kun," L replied quietly. "What did you find out today?"

Matt scratched his head and considered. "Uh… Kat's priorities are severely skewed, and Light screams like a girl when his pie is threatened."

Mello raised an eyebrow. "Anything _remotely_ relevant?"

Matt chewed on his lip. "Um… No."

L sighed. "Is the pie okay, at least?"

"Light hid it," Matt informed them, eyes shining with enthusiasm again. "So that it wouldn't get stolen by _pie_-rates."

There was a lengthy pause.

"How do you _live_ with yourself?" Mello demanded.

Matt grinned and shrugged. "I manage _arr _right," he said.


	17. All Coming Back

_Author's Note: BLAME L, NOT ME. o_o …okay, I'm a semi-closeted emo kid. I admit it!_

…_I love the song and have since I first heard it when I was six. Don't judge. XD_

_Uhh, Merry Christmas? Crap. XD Never fear; utterly insane Christmassy ficspam is forthcoming…! XD  
_

* * *

XVII. All Coming Back

As L made his way back up the stairs after a brief but satisfying cake interlude, he heard a bout of half-stifled giggling emanating from the landing that housed the bathroom.

If there was a single incontrovertible fact that one learned living at Wammy's, it was that stifled giggling of any proportion was never good.

Cautiously he sidled up the last few steps to find—somewhat unsurprisingly—Matt and Mello, with their ears pressed to the bathroom door and their fists stuffed partway into their mouths.

Perhaps even less surprisingly still, Light was audible from the other side of that door, belting out a ballad this time.

"_I finished crying in the instant that you left, and I can't remember where or when or how_…"

Mello, tears of pent laughter sparking in his eyes, his whole frame shaking, leaned his head on Matt's shoulder.

He didn't seem to notice that the other boy froze.

"_And I banished every memory you and I had ever made_…"

Light-kun sang with such invested earnestness that L couldn't help but cringe—cringe and think wildly, _I hope you didn't._

Then, of course, the tone changed, and the cake stopped sitting so well in L's capacious stomach.

"_But when you touch me like this… And you hold me like that… I just have to admit that it's all coming back to me… When I touch you like this… And I hold you like that… It's so hard to believe, but it's all coming back to me_…"

L was torn between worrying that Mello was teetering on the brink of suffocation and worrying that he himself was going into some strange sort of muscular arrest, given the very odd, ominous, and unprecedented way in which his fingertips had begun to tingle.

"_It's all coming back, it's all coming back to me now_," Light-kun's disembodied voice went on, gearing up now. "_There were moments of gold, and there were flashes of light_—"

Mello made a very undignified snort-cackle-chuckle noise. "I'll bet there were _flashes_ of _Light_!" he gasped out, laughter painting his cheeks a pink so vibrant as to be visible even in the dimness of the doorway.

"_There were things I'd never do again, but then they'd always seemed right_—"

L had touched Light's hair once, on one of the countless nights when the boy had been slumped over his keyboard, cheek on his forearm, his top and bottom eyelashes meshed, his soft sighing breaths failing to budge the crumbs on the desktop, an endless chain of empty characters lining up in his search bar as his weight depressed the spacebar key. L had reached out before he could stop himself, and by the time he realized what he was doing, it had been much too late to take it back.

Light's hair had been so silkily smooth he'd barely believed it was real. A dream, perhaps? Surely this whole ridiculous mystery-farce was an intricate nightmare liberally supplemented with irrational fantasy, an interminable hallucination cooked up by an imagination sufficiently overactive to insist that _Light Yagami_ was a sociopathic killer.

Surely. Surely none of this was real. Surely he'd wake up, and all of it would dissipate mistily, and Near would be back, and Light would be gone, and his stomach would settle as his heart at last fell silent.

"_There were nights of endless pleasure—it was more than any laws allow_…"

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, it would be gone. The simplicity of the world he knew would be reinstated, and once again logic would reign.

"_Baby, baby, if I kiss you like this_—"

_If you kiss me like this,_ L thought blankly, the image on his dark eyelids much too clear, _I will lose my tenuous hold on my mind._

"_And if you whisper like that_—"

L's lips wanted to whisper. Whether they would form "No" or "Please" was a toss-up at best.

"_It was lost long ago, but it's all coming back to me_…"

L opened his eyes. Mello was grinning like a maniac, one hand creeping towards the doorknob.

Maybe _Mello_ was Kira, looking at _that_ smirk.

…Kira in leather. That was an interesting thought.

L really was going to vomit, and not because of that. He leaned against the wall.

"_If you want me like this—and if you need me like that—it was dead long ago, but it's all coming back to me_—"

Was he coming down with something? His cheeks were on fire, and his forehead—

"_It's so hard to resist, and it's all coming back to me_—"

Mello exploded through the door, dropped to his knees, and sang along at the top of his lungs.

"_I can barely recall—but it's all—coming back to me now_!"

Matt fumbled for the doorknob, grasping it for support as he began to laugh nothing short of hysterically.

Light's head and shoulders appeared around the edge of the shower curtain, the latter slick with water and the remnants of soapsuds, the former blissfully ignorant of how much the sight of him weakened L's knees.

"You know," Light remarked dryly (which Matt must have appreciated), "that only proves that you know the song."

"I learned it from you, Célight," Mello replied, beaming.

"That was the first time I went through the chorus," Light retorted.

"That was the first time I went through your _mom_," Mello returned gleefully.

The light—and the _Light_—seared L's eyes, scalded them, set his simmering stomach to a boil. Clutching his mutinous head between his hands, he stumbled for the stairs, tripped his way up the rest of them, and managed somehow to close the door to his bedroom before the gravity of the bed drew him to it, to a haven where the comforter cradled him gently, where the sounds were faint and distant, where the darkness was cool and complete. He curled up as if it might help him to disappear.

That sounded nice.

The soft knocking at the door felt like it was against his skull.

"Yes?" he forced his voice to call.

All told, it was more of a whimper than a call, but L was going to take what he could get.

The door opened, but he didn't roll over to see who it was. He recognized the cadence of Light's footsteps without looking anyway.

"Are you all right?"

It was a stupid question, L noted to his knees. He was feeling fantastic. That was why he was lying, unmoving, on top of the bed, with his head trying to split and his stomach twisting itself to pieces.

He hoped Light had thought to dress. Asking questions like that, the boy might well have washed his brain cells down the shower drain; who knew what he'd do next?

What he did, in fact, was to sit cautiously on the edge of the bed and set a warm hand gently on L's shoulder.

L recoiled, and the hand withdrew.

"Did you have any real food today?"

Didn't merit an answer. And he couldn't muster one.

"Have you been sleeping?"

"Near," he muttered around his knotted throat.

"Nearl—? Oh. I see."

_You always do, damn it. Damn you. Damn the way you understand._

"Wherever Near is," Light said softly, "whoever has him is baiting us. I really don't think he'd go to all the trouble if Near wasn't in one piece. Near's not his target."

"You haven't seen him," L mumbled, burying his face deeper in the tangle of his arms around his knees. "Near's a molester magnet. They all are. They're brilliant, and completely helpless. They believe in people. They believe that right and wrong are two sides of the street, and you can walk one or the other without them merging, without them changing places. Those sorts of people—they can see that. They can read that. And they target that. Even if Near's not the goal, he's no less irresistible for his dispensability. I don't want to know what someone like that would do to him. I don't want to think about it. And all we've got is _puzzle pieces_ that don't _match_."

Now he was definitely going to throw up.

There was silence for a moment. He broke it.

"Can you get me a bucket?" he managed.

x

When Light navigated carefully around to the right side of the bed to offer him a small white plastic bucket, L took it in his arms and held it to his chest, closing himself around it. He avoided Light's eyes—and then proceeded to writhe as guilt sent its tendrils through his veins when the boy retreated.

_I need cake, _he thought weakly. _I need a cake the size of a truck._

He had drifted three-quarters of the way into a hazy dream about a truck _made_ of cake—with pastilles for the headlights and a strawberry-icing windshield—when someone touched his elbow.

"Hey. Ryuzaki. I want you to try to eat this."

"Cake?" L muttered, cracking an eye open, scenting something that was definitively not a pastry.

"Chicken soup," Light corrected, the steam rising from the bowl half-obscuring his smile.

L sniffed at it suspiciously. Some part of him perked up. "Did you put any sugar in it?" he asked.

Light wrinkled his nose, subtly pushing the bowl towards his captive. "No. But I did dilute it with more water than the can recommends so that it wouldn't contain sixty percent of your daily allowance of sodium. If you get it down, you can have some pie."

That was a compelling bribe. The fragrance of the pie sitting smugly on his desk had permeated the room, and he'd spent the afternoon fighting the urge to eat it whole.

It would have been a bit of a trick, but he was fairly certain he could do it.

L levered himself partway up on one elbow, peeled an arm away from his precious bucket, and selected one of the salt crackers from the stack of them. He held it partially submerged in the soup until it had almost melted, at which point he brought it to his mouth.

Salty, yes, as expected, but somehow grounding because of it.

He sat a little further up and went for a second cracker, pausing to meet Light's hopeful gaze. He owed the boy that much.

"Thank you, Light-kun," he said sincerely.

Light smiled. "The honorifics are back," he noted. "You must be feeling better."

"You didn't have to make me soup," L noted, taking another cracker still in spite of himself. This warmth didn't hover on his skin, sapping his strength as it fought for dominance with the tremors that possessed his bones. This warmth slid gently down his throat and spread outwards, seeping through the whole of him—gently, gently, like Light-kun's smile.

"It came from a can, Ryuzaki," the boy revealed. "There weren't exactly hours of toil involved."

L gave up on crackers and went for the spoon. "It was a kind thing to do nonetheless," he decided.

Perhaps he imagined it in his feverish haze, or perhaps Light really did blush happily.

—

Matt looked to Mello where the other boy was crouched next to him, both of them scuttling back a little from where they'd been listening at the door.

…again. For a pair of geniuses, they were pretty slow learners.

"Good God," Mello said bewilderedly. "Lightbulb really _is_ turning into a housewife. We're _doomed_."


	18. Change of Plans

_Author's Note: For once, I have a legitimate excuse for the lateness—a traffic jam of EPIC proportions. And then, you know, dinner, and dessert, and Christmas Volume II, and… also I forgot like usual._

_Prizes for anyone who can guess where THIS chapter's title comes from! XD_

_(…wtf, Mello? Warn me when you're going to be like that. Jeez, boy!)_

* * *

XVIII. Change of Plans

"Change of plans!" Mello announced loudly, banging on L's door the next morning. "Are you up? Are you decent? Does Light have clothes on? All of them, I mean; I won't settle for just pants or just a shirt—my retinas are sensitive, you know."

Light opened the door, blessedly fully-dressed, not-so-blessedly scowling sourly.

"Shut up!" he ordered. "He's sleeping!"

Mello stood on his toes to peek over Light's shoulder, somewhat incredulous. Oddly, but undeniably, there was a familiar form curled beneath the covers, a shock of black hair spilling onto the pillow.

"He sleeps?" he prompted. "I don't think I've ever seen him sleep before."

Light smiled, glancing back in a way he must have thought looked ordinarily fond, or he wouldn't have done it. Mello took the opportunity to note the correlation between the blanket on the armchair and the wildly uncharacteristic wrinkles on Light's shirt.

"It's a rare occurrence," the resident neat freak was explaining, "but it happens." He turned his attention to Mello again. "What kind of change of plan are we talking about?" he inquired.

"Way to end a sentence with a preposition," Mello reprimanded. When Light merely blinked, he cleared his throat imperiously. "_Anyway_. The change of plan in question entails that L stays here and recuperates all day, and you're going to make sure he actually does it. In the meantime, Matt and I are going to forge our way into the inimical world and fight the good fight this fine morning. That way, tonight—" He paused for a dashing grin of triumph. "—we'll all be ready to go to the Ricochet."

Light frowned, stepped out into the hall, and shut the door behind him. "What's the Ricochet?" he asked warily, eyeing Mello almost as mistrustfully as a certain Hellspawn Librarian might have done in his place. "Or do I even want to know?"

"It's a club," Mello reported. "It's a club that is _well_ within our search radius, and which should therefore be thoroughly investigated."

Light looked dubious. To be fair, Mello supposed that, if hell froze over and the Forces That Were rendered _him_ a preppy Golden Boy with too big a vocabulary by half, he wouldn't be too keen on taking recreational advice from leather-clad lunatics either.

"Is it sketchy?" Light asked slowly.

"Not even remotely," Mello lied contentedly. "It's all classical music and restored Renaissance décor."

Light raised an eyebrow.

"I'm kidding," Mello informed him conspiratorially.

"So I gathered," Light replied crisply.

Mello waved a negligent hand. "Look, Halogen—the way L's been lately, don't you think the best thing for him is a little adventure? Dress him up, drag him out, force him to have a good time?"

Light relented visibly. Mello was beginning to think it was impossible for this kid to be Kira—he was utterly transparent a considerable portion of the time.

"All right," he decided. "As long as I get to keep an eye on him."

"You can keep both eyes and both hands on him, for all I care," Mello informed him, caught up in a largely unsurprising fit of daring.

"Ex_cuse_ me?" Light sputtered.

"Sorry," Mello remarked cheerfully. "That was my death-wish talking. In any case, you're coming, too. You'll like this place; the music doesn't suck too much, and it's just dark enough that you can't tell who's on what."

Somehow, the revelation didn't seem to sway Light's opinion. And here Mello had been, thinking that ambiguousness was a _good_ thing when it came to illicit substances…

"I thought you'd gotten yourselves kicked out of every club that tried to establish itself here," Light noted. He didn't sound very impressed. Kid must not have realized how difficult it was to be rowdy enough to merit expulsion in some of those places—like the time they'd had to fake drunk and request the Macarena seven times before the manager even _spoke_ to them, and then only to discuss the finer points of the hand motions—

"We kind of had fun at this one," Mello reported dutifully. "So we made an effort not to attract too much unwanted attention."

…_yet,_ he added mentally.

Light folded his arms across his chest, but Mello could quite clearly see that he'd won. It was unfortunate that victory dancing seemed inappropriate.

"Try to get something useful done today," Light said.

_Who died and made you God?_ Mello muttered to himself. Sadly, he needed Light on his side right about now, and insults in the guise of theological speculation didn't seem like the best way to win the Glowworm over.

"O ye of little faith," he scoffed instead. "I know the drill."

Light's face underwent another transformation, this time to horror. "I just imagined you armed with power tools," was his answer to Mello's skepticism, "and I feared for my life."

Mello grinned wolfishly. "Why is that in the past tense?" he inquired.

—

Light closed the door again as quietly as he could, but Ryuzaki stirred despite his caution.

It figured that Mello trying to smash the door down went unnoticed, but the second Light touched the doorknob…

A dark head rose a few inches from the pillow, its great, underscored eyes blinking. A crease in the pillowcase had left a pink track across one cheek.

"What time is it?" Ryuzaki mumbled.

"Ridiculously early," Light answered glibly. "Go back to sleep."

Ryuzaki looked at the clock, which betrayed that it was just past nine.

"Liar," he murmured, but he buried his face in the pillow again.

If Light had known how compliant Ryuzaki was going to be, he would have encouraged him to get to the point of extreme, malnourished sleep-deprivation more often.

…no, he wouldn't. The whole thing had thrown him for an utterly ridiculous loop. He'd listened to Ryuzaki's breathing all night, just to make sure that it didn't stop.

…come to think of it, he hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep in days.

…some vacation.

…that was what he got for going on a case-holiday with Ryuzaki.

…he wouldn't trade it for the world.

Smiling a little to himself, Light wedged his laptop between the papers and the books and Ryuzaki's own computer on the desk, curled up in the armchair, and drew the blanket up to his shoulder.

There were a lot of extraordinary things about Wammy's House. One of them was the unshakable feeling of safety. Swathed in it, Light was asleep in minutes.

—

"Hey, Matt."

"What." Roger would have hung his head in surrender if he'd known how Matt had punctuated it in his head, but questions, like everything else, sometimes ended up twisted when in close proximity to Mello's Black Hole Personality of Doom.

"I think we should take a chocolate break."

Matt looked over at him where Mello was gazing with a completely deliberate bemusement at the road, his boots up on the dash.

"I saw you eat a chocolate bar right before we left," he replied.

Mello clucked his tongue. "You'd trust your eyes over me? Shame, Matty-Boy; shame. We both know you're nearsighted anyway."

Matt frowned. "That hardly prevents me from watching you eating chocolate."

"Watching me eating chocolate, eh?" Mello's grin encapsulated all that was evil in the world. "That's a healthy fetish. We ought to nourish it. Let's try that convenience store."

Matt clenched his gloved fingers around the steering wheel and then loosened them again. "I don't think you're taking this seriously," he said.

_Thank you, _he thought, _Captain Obvious. We were in desperate need of your highly-predictable services._

Mello settled in his seat. "I had such a great talk with Light this morning," he explained, which might have passed for a Mello Apology. "It put me in a good mood. And I can't wait to go clubbing."

"What was in the chocolate bar you _did_ have?" Matt demanded.

"Crack," Mello answered lovingly. "And powdered joy."

Matt spared him another glance.

"Why do you think they call it 'coke-oa'?" Mello inquired cheerfully.

"Because you're retarded," Matt responded.

It seemed to be the most logical explanation for the phenomenon that was unfolding.

"Come on," Mello wheedled. "We'll have fun."

"With you eating chocolate, or with the clubbing?"

Mello beamed. "Both, of course."

Usually, Matt was all for clubbing it up until morning ambushed them, at which point they had to skulk back into the house drunk, reeling, and jelly-limbed from dancing the night away. Today… today he was leery of the Ricochet for reasons that hadn't solidified in his head, and which rather squirmed, eel-like, around its edges. Something wasn't sitting right.

Neither was Mello, the soles of whose boots were shedding flakes of dirt onto the dashboard.

"I think _somebody_ needs a hug," Mello decided at Matt's silence.

Matt made a noise like _Urk_. "Not while I'm driv—"

"_Hug time_!" Bare arms encircled his torso and squeezed tightly. Matt took a breath just before they contracted, well-aware that it'd be a few long seconds before he would be able to inflate his chest enough to get another one.

"Strangling—" he managed, trying and failing to keep the wheel steady.

"Nonsense," Mello replied.

"Going to get pulled over for driving under the influence—"

"_Nonsense_, I say—"

"Let _go_—"

"But don't you love me, Mattsie?"

Matt stared. Mello's eyes, which were rather closer than usual due to their entanglement, shone with childlike candor.

A candor that was, as always, stitched together with mischief, amusement around the border.

"Actually," Matt told him calmly, "I am opposed to you and everything you stand for."

Mello shrugged, which felt slightly strange for the still-trapped Matt. "All right," he conceded. "Maybe you don't need a hug." He released his hold on his chauffeur and sat up, tapping his chin now. "Maybe," he proposed, "you need a _cigarette_. There's another service station—quick, before it gets away!"

"You're not going to shut up until you get chocolate," Matt concluded, utilizing another non-question.

Mello grinned. "You know me too well," he confirmed. "So well that it would probably be wise of me to kill you for my own safety." He sat up properly for the first time, boots thumping on the floor. "There! Prime parking space!"

"It's a handicapped spot," Matt pointed out.

"We're socially handicapped," Mello countered.

"We don't have a rearview mirror placard for that," Matt reminded him, sliding the car between the lines of a significantly less illegal space.

"Now we're a million miles from the door," Mello griped, but he hopped out and strolled towards it anyway, leather gleaming in the sun.

Matt locked the car and followed, the bell at the door jingling merrily to welcome him. Mello was already leaning over the shelves of chocolate, examining them intently, as though he was in the process of defusing a vastly intricate bomb, and removing the wrong specimen of candy bar would blow the whole place sky-high.

Matt rolled his eyes and went to get his smokes—smiling a little.

As long as there were chocolate bars and cigarettes in the world, it kind of seemed like everything would work out all right.


	19. Don't Go to Pieces

_Author's Note: …Blame Ric Ocasek._

_I have attempted to make it up to you with needless length and Paper Doll Time. XD_

_The last bit, minus Mello's rebuttal, is the absolute first thing I wrote for the fic. NOW YOU KNOW._

* * *

XIX. Don't Go to Pieces

Matt drummed his fingers on the wheel as Mello played with the three puzzle pieces they'd scrounged up at the park, attempting to force them to fit before he paused to heed the stereo.

_Big city noise disappears  
Sucker punch is in your heart  
Light is reason, light is due  
My shape is shapeless in your suit  
Chrome-red eyeballs reflect and roll  
Simple sun is slowly sinking…_

"Are you playing The Cars while we're _in_ a car?" Mello demanded incredulously.

"Yes," Matt said.

"Blasphemy," Mello muttered.

"The song's called 'Cruiser,'" Matt reported.

"You tarnish the good name of irony," Mello informed him.

"You're just lucky I didn't play 'Drive,'" Matt replied.

Mello shook his head slowly. "Matt," he sighed, "you are a horrible, horrible person."

Matt pulled up by the gate. "Get out," he told Mello.

Mello stared at him. "Jeez," he managed. "You don't have to take it _personally_."

"I think I would be more than entitled to," Matt responded, "but what I meant was that you should get out now, 'cause I'm going to take the car around."

"Oh," Mello said.

Divested of his leather-laden passenger, Matt drew the obedient vehicle to the small cement wasteland that passed for the Wammy's parking lot. He tapped out a cigarette and stuck it between his lips, more for reassurance than anything else—Roger, Wammy, or both together would slaughter him, flay him, and nail his hide to the front door as a warning to the others if he smoked in the car.

_What's it gonna prove?_ Ric Ocasek was asking, somewhat sardonically, in the next track.

_Turnin' all the dials, makin' all the right moves  
What's it gonna prove?  
It's all so mystical…  
What's it gonna prove?  
You look so tacky in your chrome-drip belt  
What's it gonna prove?  
You're ready to rage and starting to melt down…_

He snapped the stereo off, leaving his CD embedded somewhere in its machinery, and started towards the house with his hands in his pockets, but the song had taken up a tenancy in his head now and was accordingly beginning to throw raucous parties and chase away other potential leaseholders.

_What's it gonna show?  
All left out and ready to go  
What's it gonna mean?  
You feel like trash, but you look so clean  
What's it gonna do?  
All of them angels, jealous of you  
Where's it gonna go?  
Anyplace, faster pace, overcome the low blow…_

That would be irony's cue to resign.

Or Matt's cue to get a life.

_Don't go to pieces…  
B-b-b-baby…  
Don't go to pieces…_

At this rate, Matt would be going to puzzle pieces, if anything.

Kat intercepted him on the stairs, even though he'd taken the back ones.

"Hiya, Mattrinome!" she greeted him brightly. "Something about finally getting a corner, and Mello wants you!"

"Eavesdropping?" Matt prompted.

Kat nodded emphatically.

"Well-done," Matt told her, digging in his pocket for some sort of reward.

He came up with a lighter, a bit of lint, and about a pound.

He ignored the fact that Kat was eyeing the lighter and handed her the money instead. She couldn't burn the House down with a single pound.

…on second thought, maybe giving her _anything_ was a bad idea.

Well, as long as he was out of the house before she doused the playroom in gasoline, he supposed he'd probably be okay.

—

Light-kun looked contentedly at the four puzzle pieces—which didn't fit with the three edge pieces they'd found in the package—that they'd finally managed to assemble.

"Now we just have to piece the rest together," he announced.

"And corner the culprit," L murmured.

He and Light exchanged a look.

"Too much time around Matt," Light decided.

"Pun overexposure," L agreed.

Light glanced at the clock. "Hm," he remarked. "Mello wanted us to start getting ready about now."

L nudged a puzzle piece, frowning. "Ready for what?"

"To check out one of the clubs that's on the map," Light answered calmly.

L stared at him.

"He promised that it's not sketchy," Light managed.

Frowning, L responded, "Mello-kun's specifications for 'not sketchy' are significantly more lenient than those of regular human beings."

Light smiled a little. "Are you trying to imply that we are 'regular human beings'?" he inquired.

L sighed to himself and unfolded from his place on the bed. "Let's see what he suggests we do to prepare for this dubious outing," he conceded reluctantly.

"That sounds way better than 'for getting wasted at a maybe-sketchy club,'" was Light's verdict, bolstered by a grin.

x

L paused with his hand raised to knock.

"Ow," Matt said. "It's too _tight_."

"You're just doing it wrong," Mello retorted. "Pull harder."

"_Ow_! I'm pulling as hard as I can!"

"Well, it's not good enough. You need to do it in one smooth motion, like—"

"Oh, shut up—_nngh_—Jesus Christ, Mello—"

"No need to get blasphemous."

"Your _face _is—I'm too big—"

"Take your damn boxers off, then."

"_Now_ who's being—_umph_—blasphemous?"

"At least I'm not a _failure_."

"Maybe you just have _unrealistic standards_."

"Maybe you just have a fat ass—"

"Maybe you—_hnn_—just have a _scrawny_ one—"

Light was whimpering—literally _whimpering_—and cowering away from the door with wide eyes.

L considered, steeled himself, and knocked loudly.

Mello groaned. "What the hell is it this time—"

The door opened.

Matt, clad in the usual striped shirt and a pair of Spyro boxers, was partway into a pair of Mello's leather pants, breathing with difficulty as he glanced towards the door.

"Good timing," he noted.

"Matt's fat," Mello reported.

"Not as fat as your _mom_," Matt shot back, twin bursts of pink in his cheeks. "This isn't working; help me get out of your damn demon pants."

"Don't hate on the sexy pants just because you can't wear 'em," Mello retorted, but he went over, pushed Matt down on the bed, grasped the pants legs, and started pulling anyway.

L looked to Light-kun. The boy appeared to be deeply and permanently traumatized.

L strongly doubted that it was the first time the sexy pants had facilitated that particular result.

With a final vicious tug, Mello succeeded in peeling the pants off of Matt, tossed them on the floor, and came over to clap Light heartily on the back.

"Walk it off, Champ," he recommended. He thought a moment. "Since you and Matty-Boy are hopeless," he declared, "I'm going to work my magic on L. Ciao, losers."

There was no time to protest before Mello had him by the sleeve and had begun dragging L out of the room and down the stairs. They tried the library and then the dining room, for what L didn't know—at least, he didn't until they reached the playroom, at which point Mello's eyes lit up with maniacal glee.

L feared for his life. And his sanity. And his dignity, what of it there was.

"Fiona," Mello said imperiously, "let me borrow your flatiron."

Oh, dear.

The young brunette looked up from her socializing and raised her eyebrows until they almost disappeared beneath the turquoise scarf about her hair. "What'll you give me if I do?" she demanded.

"Nothing," Mello told her unconcernedly.

Fiona pursed her lips. "Then why should I give it to you?"

Mello smiled winningly. "Because I'll give you something if you _don't_."

"What's that?"

"A swift kick in the ass."

Fiona was unimpressed. "That's extortion," she informed him.

Mello shrugged. "I play to my strengths."

Grumbling, Fiona drew herself up to her full height and sauntered off in search of the item obediently.

"Mello…" L sighed.

"It's the art of bartering, L," Mello responded smugly.

"Or of blackmail," L noted.

"Same thing," Mello concluded.

"You could at least say 'please,'" L pointed out.

Mello looked confused. "But that's no fun…"

Fiona returned, bearing what appeared to be the chrome-coated lovechild of a police baton and an alligator. She proffered the device to Mello.

"Good work, slave," he said.

Fiona rolled her eyes and flounced back to her circle of friends.

"Does Mello-kun intend to beat me with this object?" L inquired, examining the acquisition with some consternation.

Latching onto his sleeve again—more to prevent escape than to lead the way, L surmised—Mello pulled L up the stairs towards the bathroom.

"Only if you don't cooperate," he remarked.

This did not assuage L's worries.

"Cooperate with what?" he prompted, unsure whether or not he actually wanted to be privy to Mello's likely terrorist plot. It didn't take a genius to recognize that the blond boy could do more damage with a flatiron than the average human being could do with a machinegun.

Sure enough, Mello offered only an extremely evil laugh.

Oh, _dear_.

—

Light exchanged glances with his fellow hopeless case.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Matt asked.

"Look so good that we prove Mello wrong?" Light hazarded.

Matt grinned. "You'll make a Wammy Kid yet," he decided.

Light tried not to look as pleased as he felt.

"Any suggestions?" he asked.

Matt's face fell. "That's the problem," he confessed.

"What's the problem?" a familiar voice inquired cheerfully from the doorway.

"We're going clubbing," Matt explained, "and—"

"Which club?" Kat wanted to know.

"The Ricochet," Matt answered, "which means—"

"Can I come?"

Matt raised an eyebrow. "Absolutely not."

Kat stuck out her bottom lip. "So you guys get to go to a cool club while the rest of us stay home? I see what the _problem_ is here."

"We have to dress accordingly," Light told her, "and Mello's convinced we can't."

Abruptly Kat's enthusiasm returned. "Can I help?"

There was barely time to nod hesitantly before she had bustled over to the dresser and begun pawing through its contents. "Do you have a pair of jeans with you, Light?"

"I don't really wea—"

A bundle of denim collided with his chest, narrowly missing his face, and he caught it reflexively.

"You do now," Kat reported cheerfully. "And take this."

The next projectile flung at him turned out to be a leather belt with a tremendous silver buckle in the shape of a flaming skull. Light wondered if it was humanly possible to be less subtle than Mello.

It would take a concerted effort, he decided.

And a lot of leather.

"Do you have a red tee-shirt?" Kat was asking.

Light shook his head.

"Black or white'll do," she mused.

"Why don't I just bring my suitcase in here?" Light suggested.

Kat nodded emphatically. "Good idea. I'll help Matt in the meantime."

When Light returned six or seven minutes later, he was armed with a rolling suitcase full of neatly-partitioned clothing—and something additional.

Matt stared. "Is that the Kinky Chain?" he asked.

"What's the Kinky Chain?" Kat inquired cheerfully.

Nodding in response to Matt's question, Light set the paradigm of kinkiness on the bed. "Avert your eyes, Kat," he said. When she had obligingly placed her hands to obscure her vision, Light dropped his khakis and replaced them with Matt's borrowed jeans. They fit just about right, though the denim was rather rougher against his skin than the fabrics he usually encountered, and, satisfied, he took up the chain, the cuffs unlocked, and strung the length of the contraption through the belt loops once. He wrapped the rest around his waist until he ran out of steel, securing the chain by feeding it through another loop every time it seemed too loose. He closed the cuffs in front and adjusted a little, and then he shrugged.

"Just a thought I had," he disclaimed.

"I like it," Matt decided, rubbing at his chin. "Lots of punk flavor, just a smidgeon of edginess, and an underlying message of 'Molesters are not welcome.'"

Kat peeked through her fingers. "That's the Kinky Chain?" she wondered. "Why's it kinky?"

"Long story," Light replied. He took a moment to admire Matt's new attire, which involved a pair of fairly tight black jeans and a short-sleeved black-and-white-striped shirt. "Looks good," he decided.

The excavation of the dresser yielded a few trinkets to an inquisitive Kat. She strapped a rivet-ridden leather bracelet around Matt's right wrist and stood on her tiptoes to muss his hair up a little. He arranged the goggles on top of his head and then stood back, arms out, for scrutiny.

"Well?"

"Awesome," Kat decided. She turned to Light. "And we just need to ditch that preppy shirt—do you have a black one? It'd contrast nicely with the silver—and you'll be all set…"

—

Mello spun him around. "Ta-da!" was the triumphant cry.

L blinked at the mirror. He would discredit what it told him entirely if he hadn't seen all the individual pieces, but a knowledge of the component parts didn't make the whole image any less strange.

His hair had fallen victim to Fiona's flat-iron, and once the fortress of its disorder had been breached, Mello had tied it at the base of his neck with a black elastic band. A few uneven sections were still falling into his eyes—he imagined that preventing such a contingency would require a great deal of the sorts of sticky products that came in futuristic-looking bottles, and he was glad that Mello had neglected to enlist their aid—but, for the first time in recent memory, he could actually see his own ears.

Everything about the vision in the mirror, in fact, was unfamiliar—the black tee-shirt that fit so closely as to display the protrusions of his ribs; the black pants adorned with too many zippers and pockets and safety pins to count; the silver spiked collar that encircled his neck; the matching bracelets Mello had unearthed from no-one-wanted-to-know-where; and, perhaps most of all, the heavy boots strapped and buckled and Velcroed about his feet.

At least Mello hadn't insisted on socks. L might have been forced to revolt against the yoke of sartorial tyranny and injustice if that had been the case.

Mello, who had embellished his regular attire with a pair of fingerless fishnet gloves that spanned a forearm each, planted his hands on his hips, looking dreadfully pleased with himself.

"What do you think?" he asked.

L peered at himself a moment longer. "I think," he decided, "that Light-kun is going to have a heart attack, at which point it will look as though _I_ am Kira."

Mello grinned. "I guess we'll have to revive him with obscenely loud music," he noted. "Shall we be off, then?"

Light and Matt were sitting in the cushy armchairs in the foyer when Mello and L descended, Matt looking extremely intrigued, Light looking extremely uncomfortable, apparently not just about his altered raiment.

"Let me get this straight," Matt was saying. "Your ex is thin, pretty, blonde, overreacts to everything, and has a penchant for Gothic clothing?"

"Yes," Light confirmed hesitantly.

Matt grinned. "Are you sure you weren't dating Mello?"

Light blanched. "I have never been surer of a thing in my life."

"Your loss, Origami," Mello replied cheerfully. "Let's blow this popsicle stand."


	20. Something Sophisticated

_Author's Note: If you look closely at the beginning of this chapter, you can see me go from Blah to Emo. And then I got some of my shit together on LiveJournal between the hours of one-thirty and three-thirty in the morning, and then eventually I went to bed, and then… why are you reading this? XD_

_(That was the original note; this is the good one.)_

_You guys. You guys._

_I have the best excuse ever this time, are you ready? So I got a virus on my computer—a huge, evil, insanely malicious Trojan horse that invaded my spyware program and wouldn't let me do shit. It was getting progressively worse, so I went to my tech support. Also known as my boyfriend's friend Michael._

_Praise be to that boy. You don't know him, but you love him. I went over to his house at three in the afternoon, and when I left at one in the morning, it was still copying my documents over. He reformatted everything and basically saved my little plastic universe, and I intend to bake him cookies._

_I'll answer reviews and be a good person once everything's a little more settled; I don't even have my L collage back on my desktop yet. D:_

_Also, rappelezfille did an AMAZING fanart of club-ready L, which I'll try to link to on my profile page ASAP!! :D_

* * *

XX. Something Sophisticated

As Matt parallel-parked deftly across the street from a dark façade broken by overzealous neon swirls, the pounding of a bass beat quite audible even at this distance, the be-goggled boy crowed his triumph at their good fortune—but L wasn't so sure. He wasn't sure about this club, wasn't sure about the silver convertible Matt had insisted they take to get here, wasn't sure about this part of town in general, and wasn't sure that this place wasn't going to open slavering neon jaws and eat him alive.

The one thing he _was_ sure of was that it was impossible to curl one's toes properly when the toes in question were impeded by huge, hulking Goth boots.

This was one of the many reasons why L Lawliet did not usually believe in making sacrifices for fashion.

Burdened by his newly weighted feet, L clambered out of the car and stood watching the stream of people pouring in and out of the black doorway hunched beneath the word _Ricochet_ in searing white. The crowd seemed to include everyone from businesspeople with ties and shirt collars loosened to full-fledged punks with a veritable rainbow of dyed, spiked, and otherwise remarkably complicated hairstyles.

That unnerved L a little, too—when there was a consensus among his peers, even a foreign uniformity, at the least he knew how he was expected to act, whether or not he observed it.

Matt pressed a button on the car keys, and the sleek vehicle chirped merrily.

"Come on," Mello prompted, eyes again aflame with a slightly unsettling fervor. "And stand up straight, L. After all that work…"

Reluctantly, L obliged.

All three of his companions stopped to stare at him, not seeming to realize or care that they were in the middle of the street, the unnatural incandescence of the neon playing on their stunned expressions.

"Jesus, you're tall," Matt concluded at last.

"…sorry?" L attempted, starting to duck again.

"No, keep it," Mello interrupted. "It's great, just… weird…"

Oh, _huzzah_—weird. That was exactly what he wanted.

"As you like, Mello-kun," he murmured, moving towards the black-hole doorway and hoping they'd get the hint.

Between the boots and the posture, he _did_ have to admit that the world looked rather different from up here.

The bouncer waved them unworriedly in, and the whole effect of the establishment washed over L in a series of progressively larger tidal waves—the music made his bones jitter rhythmically; the strobes were blinding; the industrial steel stairways that twined together and led to the upper level seemed skeletal in the inconstant light; and the patrons, on the whole, looked dreadfully intimidating and potentially cannibalistic.

Before L could pull the elastic band out of his hair, kick the boots off, turn around, and flee to the safety of the car—it was a convertible, after all; he could just jump in and sit there quietly until the others were done 'investigating'—Mello grabbed one of his arms, Matt took the other, and the two of them dragged him into the seething center of the dance floor.

"_Come on_," Mello urged, shouting over the din, as L stood silently, trying to be inconspicuous while also attempting not to get his limbs broken by the thrashing masses on every side.

"_I can't dance_," L responded, hoping that Mello could read lips.

Apparently it was among the boy's talents; he rolled his eyes without pausing in his intricate swaying. "_Everybody can dance_," he retorted.

"_You just make it up as you go_," Matt put in helpfully.

L glanced towards the door. Perhaps Light, who was currently making his ungainly way through the crowd towards them, would save him from this indignity.

Light dodged the last elbow to join them. "_What's the problem_?" he asked.

"_L can't dance_," Mello answered.

L wished they wouldn't call him that in public. Kira might be able to read lips, too. His spies could be anywhere, with their hair styled as ridiculously as possible to distract from their insidious purpose—

"_Everybody can dance_," Light countered. With that pearl of wisdom—which corroborated theories of conspiracy—he tossed L a wink, raised both arms over his head, and turned in a full circle, rolling his hips languidly, the familiar chain gleaming mischievously as it caught the nearest strobe.

Thinking about Light-kun's hips was not helping matters.

Neither was the way that everyone around them was apparently quite content to do it anyway.

L was not jealous—categorically not. He was just—protective. That sleazy girl in the short purple dress might cut Light-kun with any part of her arsenal of protrusive jewelry in a quest to infiltrate his pants, and _then_ where would they be?

He was eighty-nine percent certain that he was lying to himself, and ineffectually at that.

Light ran both hands through his hair, smiling slowly.

…ninety-four percent…

Matt elbowed Mello, though whether the maneuver was deliberate or accidental might have brooked debate.

"_Maybe we should get him drunk first_," Matt suggested.

Mello paused in writhing artistically. "_Good idea_," he decided.

"_Bad idea_," L corrected, but no one seemed to be listening.

Or looking, really, since he doubted they could have heard him anyway.

Matt and Mello seized his wrists again, dreadfully pleased with themselves, and commenced shimmying-dragging-leading-bulldozing the way to the bar, where bottles of every color glinted avidly in the greenish fluorescent light.

Speaking of Light, they appeared to have lost the boy again; the churning crowd had closed behind them. None too troubled by this advent, L's devilish disciples pushed him onto one of the black and silver barstools (which, he had to concede, matched his outfit rather nicely).

"You're not going to get me drunk," he announced at a volume that only slightly strained his vocal cords. You could almost hear yourself think in this portion of the place.

"Well," Matt remarked, "it's that or listening to Mello play his favorite club game sober."

Before L could figure out whether he was feeling daring enough to ask, Mello threw himself down on the next barstool over, stretching his arms along the counter behind him. He nodded to individual members of the varied current of people passing—well, sashaying—by.

"Skank," he commented of one. "Douche. Jock. Bitch. Perv. Poser. Weirdo."

Light squeezed out of the press on the dance floor, not seeming to heed the manicured hands trailing along his arms and torso to dissuade him, and approached the small cluster of Wammy-bred clubgoers at the bar.

"Abomination and/or Antichrist," Mello said.

L turned to Matt. "What alcoholic beverage might you recommend?" he asked, recognizing defeat.

Matt considered. "Something sophisticated," he mused. "Something complicated. Something—"

"Get this man a strawberry martini," Mello told the bartender, waving an imperious hand. He turned to L. "Have you got your credit card?"

"You're making him pay for his own drink?" Light demanded, pulling a face. "_That's_ classy."

"He'll buy you one, too," Mello informed him, accepting the plastic rectangle L proffered. Light looked to L, who shrugged.

"Could I get a Long Island Iced Tea, please?" Light asked the barkeep.

The burly man nodded and waited for Mello, who was twirling the credit card and gazing at the bottle-cap and label collage draping on the wall behind for inspiration.

L drew his knees up, struggling to balance his rubber-soled heels on the edge of the stool. It wasn't working.

"Why don't you dance, Ryuzaki?" Light inquired, settling on his other side.

"I can't," L informed him.

Light smiled, watching the shifting bodies blending under the eyes of the flickering strobes. "Everyone can," he said again. "You _don't_."

L raised his eyebrows. It was odd to think that people might actually be able to tell today. "That sounds like a challenge, Light-kun," he noted.

Light blinked at him innocently. "Fancy that," he replied.

_Fancy you,_ L thought, helplessly and the slightest bit bitterly.

Fishnet-coated hands pushed a wide-rimmed glass into his, bright pink liquid sloshing. There was a slice of strawberry impaled on the edge, looking much more appetizing than the beverage it was garnishing. "Drink up," Mello instructed, passing Light a tall glass that faded from a lemony yellow at the top to a cola brown at the bottom. Beaming his thanks, Light lifted it and sipped delicately, a warm flush in his cheeks.

Oh, hell.

L braved the last of his misgivings and drank cautiously. The sweet-sour weight of it slithered over his tongue and snaked down his throat, somehow simultaneously warm and cold, and he tried not to shudder.

"Thanks very much," Mello chirped, returning the credit card, his other hand curled around a squat margarita, glittering salt clinging to the rim of the glass like tinsel.

"You're welcome," L murmured, tucking the card into one among his endless supply of pockets, vaguely worried that he'd never find it again.

The girl Mello had decided was a skank (…whatever that entailed) sauntered by on her stilettos, pausing to bat her mascara-heavy lashes at Matt, wink at Mello, and give Light an extremely flirtatious wave that involved much waggling of fingers. Light blushed a little and became very interested in his drink.

L watched the girl's gold ringlets bounce perkily as she strolled away.

He sipped at his drink.

_Skank, _he thought.


	21. Green–Eyed

_Author's Note: I love writing dance scenes. You have no idea how much I love writing frigging dance scenes. Unless you follow the Sam and Adrian saga on deviantART, in which case you do. XD_

* * *

XXI. Green-Eyed

A glance out of the corner of Light's eye confirmed that Ryuzaki seemed to be warming up to the martini, if you took "warming up" to mean "gulping down with alacrity and at a dangerous speed."

Mello, who was already halfway through his margarita despite his late start, took notice and grinned. "Thought we weren't going to get you drunk, L," was his comment.

Ryuzaki blinked broad gray eyes at him. Light seized the opportunity to appraise his colleague surreptitiously—which he'd done a little bit in the car and a little bit on the dance floor, but _enough_ didn't seem to exist. A warmth simmered in the pit of his stomach, the concentrated alcohol feeding it like gasoline sustaining a flame, and the more he examined the long, pale fingers cradling the bowl of the glass; the more he admired the play of the lights on the oblivion-obsidian hair; the more he memorized the plane of a forehead broken by arching, unfamiliar eyebrows and the curve of an ivory cheek, the more he wanted to. Needed to. Couldn't even help it; couldn't have stopped himself if he tried…

"Mello-kun," L was saying, "if you don't cease to use that name in public, I may have to resort to calling you 'Melly,' and I don't think either of us wants that."

"I want that!" Matt piped up.

Mello scowled at him. "Shut up, Doormatt."

Matt beamed. "Whatever you say, Melly-poo," he replied sweetly.

Mello looked accusingly at Ryuzaki, who shrugged and smiled innocently. "It is colloquially called 'karma,' Mello-kun," he announced. "Though I believe that it has a slightly different meaning outside of the anglicized context—"

"Yes, he would like another martini," Mello interjected to the bartender. "In fact, keep them coming until he can't stand."

"Can't stand what, Mello-kun?" Ryuzaki prompted, eyes twinkling mischievously. "Your efforts to get me so intoxicated that I can no longer poke fun at you efficiently?"

Light attended his drink. It was, he realized, too late to worry about falling in love.

It was high time to worry about what to do about it, however, which was good, because Light always felt partly empty and partly suspicious when he didn't have something to worry about.

He was also worried that every consolatory sip of his own drink made it progressively likelier that he would do something he would regret.

Such as grab Ryuzaki's hand and drag him into the volatile crush of the dance floor after they'd both indulged in a second alcoholic beverage.

Which was what he was doing now.

Oh, God.

Had he always been this stupid and just never noticed?

When they reached the core of the roiling masses, he released Ryuzaki's hand, turning to face him.

"_Dancing's easy_," he insisted to the bright-eyed and bewildered man opposite. "_You just take what you hear_—" He pointed to his ears, whether for emphasis or because he doubted he was actually audible in the first place, he wasn't entirely sure. "_—and redirect it everywhere else_."

Ryuzaki, who looked desperately awkward and unusual with his spine straight and his bangs flirting with his flushed cheeks, put a thumb to his lips. "_That's very theoretical, Light-kun_," he decided.

Light swung his hips like a pendulum, his helium-hands floating towards the ceiling of their own accord, and breathed in the bass.

"_It's easy_," he repeated. "_Here_."

Through the haze made by a collusion of fog machines and too much liquor, he saw himself reach out and set his hands on Ryuzaki's shoulders.

"_Move these_…" He was pushing on one, and then the other, like a seesaw. "_And then these_…"

Light watched in helpless horror as his hands settled on Ryuzaki's hips, black canvas welcoming beneath his palms, the silver studs of the leather belt cold against his thumb, a sliver of unmediated skin between tight shirt and loose pants tempting his fingertips with a dizzying tangibility. They were drastically close now, as they had to be, the heat of them mixing mistily in the fractional space between them, the unyielding swell of Ryuzaki's hipbones under the heels of his hands, immense gray eyes so close that he was counting lashes before he could stop himself—

"_And_…" he murmured,"…_just_…_ improvise_…"

Tentative fingers brushed against his ribs, creeping up his chest, settling cautiously with his collarbones for handholds, and he gripped Ryuzaki's waist a little tighter, guiding the warm body to sway sinuously in tandem with his own. Blood beat in his temples at twice the speed set by the rhythm of the song blaring into the fringes of his consciousness, and the ineluctable gravity of this monochrome angel drew him nearer, nearer, nearer still—

Ryuzaki's eyes were endless. Pinned, trapped, held, Light forgot—forgot who he was, forgot where he'd been, forgot the world and its woes, forgot everything but the exquisite prison of those eyes. As his right hand rose in pursuit of the hair, of the eyes, of the _world_, he learned the undulating contours of a field of ribs, encountered the sharp crest of a narrow shoulder, dared to patronize the curve of a white neck where wisps of midnight tickled at his fingertips—

Someone tapped him on the arm.

Expecting Matt or Mello, he spun, a variety of "It isn't what it looks like"s tangling in his throat, the intoxication blurring them together enough to create a wealth of slightly epic spoonerisms, but it wasn't a Wammy's boy who had stopped him.

It was, rather, the blonde who had waved to him earlier. Her hips flicked back and forth in time with the music, the sequins on her turquoise minidress so blinding that the refractions assaulted his burning eyes, and she grinned at him contentedly.

"_What's this_?" she asked interestedly, extending a hand tipped with long sapphire nails to hook a finger in the handcuff chain. "_Some sort of new-age chastity belt_?"

Light's tongue tried to mutiny, and he reproached it roundly to set an example before he spoke.

"_It has a great deal of symbolic significance_," he heard himself answer, slurring slightly.

Apparently he was _that_ kind of drunk. Interesting.

The girl's eyes looked like sequins rescued from her dress and fixed about her pupils. Her glossy lips hosted a suggestive smile, and Light wondered, if she was trying to seduce him, why she hadn't brought her thumb to the lower one.

"_Does it have any practical applications_?" she inquired conversationally.

"_Excuse me_," Light managed, turning with every intention of doing something extremely shady and untoward with or to Ryuzaki, though he hadn't yet determined what that would be.

Fortunately—unfortunately—something—he wasn't sure, Ryuzaki was gone.

"_Shit-monkeys_," Light heard himself say.

Hmm. He _was_ drunk.

He got elbowed more than three times and groped at least twice during the struggle of a journey back to the bar, where, blessedly, Ryuzaki was perched on a barstool next to Matt, Mello mysteriously absent.

Not so blessedly, the elegant fingers that had lately traced his clavicles had acquired another martini. Matt, who was engrossed in a can of Coke that matched his hair, didn't seem to have taken note.

Light realized that he was waving his hands emphatically. "Don't drink that," he cautioned hastily. "Your blood alcohol content has got to be through the roof." He motioned avidly to the ceiling for further emphasis.

Ryuzaki clung to his glass, eyeing Light mistrustfully. "I'm having fun, Light-kun," he insisted doggedly.

Light went over and commenced prying his fingers from the stem of the glass. "No more," he said.

Ryuzaki looked alarmed, but he relinquished the thing after rescuing the strawberry on the rim, at which point Light set the glass on the counter behind him. Ryuzaki popped the strawberry into his mouth, and Light was promptly jealous of it.

He took Ryuzaki's hand again, feeling the fluttering pressure of a pulse in the captive fingers twined with his.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go see what else there is to do."

—

_Gyrating_.

What a terrible word. All gears, all mechanics, all Leonardo Da Vinci contraptions sketched on faded vellum.

Of course, it described what Mello was doing perfectly. It was Renaissance art in his hands.

Or in his hips, his hair, and his enigmatic smile, Matt supposed.

He sipped disinterestedly at his soda. He would have liked to get drunk. He would have liked that very much. But _no_… He was the designated driver.

Then again, tolerating the Ricochet sober was highly preferable to having Mello drive, whether drunk or not being largely inconsequential and frequently difficult to differentiate.

He glanced to his right and discovered that L and Light had vanished, leaving no trace but the mostly-full martini glass on the countertop. Damn thing looked awfully tempting.

Of course, so did Mello, but that was nothing new.

Speaking of Mello, the blond was either trying out a very odd new move or beckoning to him.

Figuring that it was better to be safe than sorry, Matt chugged the rest of his Coke and wandered over, trying not to let the ambient insanity endow him with a black eye or worse.

"_Why aren't you dancing_?" Mello inquired when he arrived.

Matt tried to ignore the way the strobes flashed on the leather. "_Because I'm not wasted like you are_," he explained.

Mello shook his head. "_I'm one hundred percent recyclable_," he announced.

They were playing what was possibly the single most addicting of the amazingly abysmal songs that lurked in the depths of Matt's iPod, buried in playlists with names like "Other Crap" and the superbly misleading "Insomnia Fix." Matt tried not to tap his foot, but before he could plant the soles of both of his Converse firmly on the slightly sticky floor, the synthesizer beat had wriggled its treacherous way into his bloodstream.

His hips shifted. He was doomed. A _Game Over_ screen lit up in his head accordingly.

_You can be my bad boy, be my man  
Be my weekend lover, but don't be my friend  
You can be my bad boy, but understand  
That I don't need you in my life again_

Arms, legs, waist, wrists; flick it out of him, force it in deeper; grasp it, grip it, hurl it skyward through his fingertips. Sweat sparked on Mello's forehead, icing his hairline, seizing damp strands and trapping them until a hand swiped across the skin. The ocean swell of the roll of Mello's shoulders—the pounding of Matt's heart in his chest, of the blood in his ears, of the music in his head—his skin prickled, lonesome, and Mello's eyes glowed, twin verdant fairy lights within the dark forests of his eyelashes—

A groan-moan-murmur-sigh seeped out of Matt's throat, mingling with the smoky ribbons of the fog machines' countless tongues. He let one curl him into its length like a sundew.

Matt didn't dare to close his eyes. In a metaphorical climate like this one, God knew where he'd be when he opened them again. Probably someplace that would have given Lewis Carroll nightmares.

"All _riiiight_," the deejay crowed. "Now I've got a request for y'all. Is there a Matty-Cake Bakersman in the house?"

That didn't sound good.

"Hey, Matty-Cake," the deejay sang. "This is from 'your fluorescent friend.' Enjoy!"

The riff slammed out of the speakers, just slightly more deafening than the shrill cheers of recognition it elicited. Matt didn't contribute his voice to the cacophony, but he saw what his illuminated ally had done there.

_Somebody told me  
You had a boyfriend  
Who looked like a girlfriend  
That I had in February of last year_

Mello had already settled into motion, reveling in that strange paradox at the foundation of the act of dancing in the first place. The crucifix swayed, keeping time.

_Well-played, Mr. Yagami,_ Matt thought appreciatively.

The next song turned out to be crap, and they both realized it in impeccable unison.

Matt had had enough crap for one day.

He jerked his head towards the back door of the place and pantomimed a cigarette for emphasis. Mello nodded once before shouting over the chaos, "_I'm going to see if I can find a vending machine. My blood's only fourteen percent chocolate; I'm going into withdrawals_…"

The worst part was that he was probably serious.

Matt sighed fondly and wormed his way through the crowd, which now largely consisted of people spooning, until he reached the back door. A shove on the steel bar released him into the cool air of a dim alley, where he drew a choice cancer stick, lit up, and started puffing his life away.

It was depressing, sure, but a life without nicotine wasn't much of a life anyway.

He wasn't far in before his phone vibrated abruptly. He started in surprise, shook himself, retrieved the thing, and pressed the central button to display the text, which was, quite predictably, from Mello.

Its contents were rather less predictable but every bit as strangely thrilling as their sender.

_l & lite TTLY makin out get here NOW!!_

Startlingly coherent, for a bit of drunk-texting.

Matt tossed his cigarette to the ground, stamped it out, yanked the door open, and darted back into the fray.

_

* * *

A/N: "Bad Boy" by CASCADA and "Somebody Told Me" by the Killers, respectively. They will change your LIFE._

_I actually say "shit-monkeys." And I don't have to be drunk. I'm sure you're stunned… XD_

_Is that a cliffie? Oh, my. I suppose it is. :B  
_


	22. Warm, Soft, Real

_Author's Note: What the crap, guys?_

_Not you; the boys… what…? Who told you that you could…? …aw, hell. XD_

_Yeah, I kept you all waiting long enough. Enjoy. ;)  
_

* * *

XXII. Warm, Soft, Real

Bodies blurred around them. The strobe light gleamed on Ryuzaki's hair, sparked against embellishments on his belt, shimmered in his wide eyes. A smoky wonderland extended before them, and Light drew his shining gem deeper into its luscious darkness.

He didn't know what he intended, what he hoped, what, if anything, he planned, and he didn't want to know. Too late to think now, and he was breathing smoke with alcohol skimming through his veins—

A soft laugh bubbled in his chest and effervesced out of him to dissipate in the chaos. He half-expected it to solidify into a physical shape in the hazy air, half-expected it would spell out the _wantwantneed_ stirring in the center of him, half-expected to be betrayed by this wild desperation that he couldn't kill.

With Ryuzaki's hand still warm, still soft, still real in his, he pulled them towards the double-helix stairwells that segued to the upper level and its hanging neon globes, transparent floor, silver furnishings, and second bar.

The music was loud enough even here to overwhelm everything but the eardrums, which it just assailed. Something smoldered in Ryuzaki's eyes. Light's feet halted, and his hands picked up the slack.

Gently he pushed Ryuzaki down on the steps, bent over him, and succumbed at last to the irresistible urge to apply his mouth to the white cream curve of Ryuzaki's neck.

_Warm, soft, real_—

The pliable skin invited his mouth; Ryuzaki tasted of salt and sweets and lambent light, of berries and butter and Justice's even hands; curiously, and then hungrily, and then with a groan building low in his chest, Light sucked at that flavor, tantalized, enchanted—

_Mark him, claim him, keep him, _mine—

His fingers slipped beneath the hem of Ryuzaki's shirt, their brothers on the opposite hand cradling his prize, and he thrilled at the dip of Ryuzaki's navel, at the buoyant give of the coarse hairs trailing downward from it, at the vast field of warm, soft, real skin spreading before his fingertips, at the ripple of ribs and the answering murmur of the voice by his ear—

Ryuzaki nipped the cartilage of that ear gently, his cool breath curling in the shell of it.

"Upstairs," he whispered, punctuating the order—which, for all relevant purposes, it was—with the probing tip of his tongue.

Somehow Light staggered to his feet, managing to balance despite the way the world spun, and ceded his hand to his angel, who towed him up the thousand steps, the railing escaping him, the edge precarious, until they reached the consummate marvel of the Ricochet's first-and-a-half floor.

Ryuzaki made a beeline for the bar, but before Light could articulate his suspicion that his next drop of alcohol would be the one that would push him over an unprecedented threshold of intoxication (and probably result in some glamorous blowing of chunks), Ryuzaki had fixed his unrelenting gaze on the bartender.

"Strawberries," he said.

This guy, who was significantly younger and more heavily-pierced than his downstairs counterpart, raised his perforated eyebrows. "What?"

"You put strawberries on the rims of the martinis," Ryuzaki explained patiently. "Therefore you must have a supply of them somewhere. I would like some, please."

The guy stared for a moment. Then, wordlessly, he leaned down behind the counter, reappearing moments later bearing a small bowl of strawberries with their leaves and stems neatly removed.

Ryuzaki, eyes lighting up, started patting down his pockets, presumably searching for his credit card. Something in Light's stomach staged a violent, lurching revolt as he watched Ryuzaki's hands fluttering about his legs.

The bartender was also admiring Ryuzaki's legs, though Light would have appreciated it if the young man had focused rather a bit lower than he was looking now. "On the house," he decided.

Light was going to bust a cap in that fool's ass _so_ fast—

Ryuzaki touched his arm, drawing him to one of the silver-and-glass tables. Everything was silver and glass here, or more likely steel and plastic, to the effect of a strange illusion of incorporeal existence, a suspended nothing-space. They inhabited that space, swathed in its surreality, and the other patrons hovered similarly nearby, languid on see-through chairs and draped over see-through couches. Ryuzaki, adamant and intent, chose a table and sat down at it. Reluctantly, paradoxes still sticky on his lips, Light joined him.

With two fingers Ryuzaki selected a strawberry, which he then consumed somehow both delicately and with gusto. Before Light could seize those fingers and lick them clean, Ryuzaki was offering him a deep red specimen from the bowl.

Brain still wandering somewhere in the vicinity of the bar downstairs, possibly putting up "lost human" signs by now, Light accepted the tiny gift and ate it. He had nothing against strawberries.

Ryuzaki plucked out and made short work of a few more before pushing the bowl aside and taking tongue to fingertips.

Light was pretty sure he was going to die.

Some miracle intervened, however, and he survived long enough for Ryuzaki to fold elegant hands on the table and consider him gravely.

"I thought there was a good chance the both of us would prefer that it taste like strawberries rather than cheap vodka," he announced.

"'It'?" Light repeated.

Ryuzaki looked disappointed. "Are we not going to make out?" he asked.

Light blinked at him. "Well," he replied, "when I got ditched for _strawberries_…"

"You were not _ditched_," Ryuzaki countered; "you were _postponed_."

Light folded his arms across his chest, ignoring the encouraging clinking that the chain was making, and looked at—or, rather, through—the glass tabletop.

"It kind of ruined the moment," he muttered.

Ryuzaki shook his head. "Light-kun's lack of creativity is disheartening," he remarked.

Then he climbed up onto the table, crawled across it, cupped Light's chin in one long-fingered hand, and crushed their mouths together.

And hell if it didn't taste like strawberries.

Light leaned into the overpowering taste of him, drinking it, breathing it, learning it, loving it, the tang of the alcohol stinging beneath the lingering syrupy sweetness of the strawberries they'd gone to so much trouble to procure. All of the time, all of the hours, all of the denial and the disbelief, every moment of tension tauter than the chain between them, every smutty thought and every dirty dream—all of it coalesced in the conjunction of their lips, all of it burst hotly in the union of their mouths, all of it was concentrated there, and it inflamed every nerve in Light's body at once—

They broke apart, gasping, just long enough to recover the breaths they'd entirely forgotten to draw, and then Light was pushing back, pressing a somehow-flipped Ryuzaki onto his back on the table, winding his fingers into the black belt loops to yank their hips together, feeling warm hands clench in his shirt as their owner matched him murmur-groan for murmur-groan of unutterable guilty joy.

The air interposed itself between them again as they split once more, Ryuzaki's eyes hazy with lust.

Then Light noticed the upturned bowl of strawberries, fruit strewn across the glass, and the puzzle piece that had spilled out with them, its white surface stained red.

—

Matt cursed vehemently in his head. He'd missed all the fireworks.

Mello was settled in a front-row seat with another margarita, though he stood unsteadily as Light picked up the puzzle piece, red juice running down his fingers.

It figured that all Matt got was the smoke.

Light was still half-on top of L, however, which was some consolation, though only until the former stumbled back, apparently almost literally sobered by the discovery. L sat up, then, too, and didn't seem appropriately startled to see Matt and Mello (and half of the rest of the assembled company) looking eagerly on.

"Let's go," he urged them.

The assembled company released a collective "_Aww_…!"

Mello downed the rest of his margarita, felt for the table to set it on, stretched like a cat, and started for the stairs.

That was a recipe for disaster if Matt had ever seen one—two cups liquor, one cup Mello, stirred vigorously _and _shaken, garnished with undue attention and some gnarly leather boots, on a staircase.

Matt grabbed Mello's arm, trying not to notice the pulsing heat of it and the pattern of the fishnet against his palm, and beckoned to L and Light.

"Come on, party animals," he bid them. "Circus is closed."

Somehow, he managed to herd them across the street without anyone getting their ass run over. He was pretty sure he ought to get a medal for that maneuver.

No bling, though, and no rest for the not-as-wicked-as-he'd-like.

He felt like a mom putting everyone's seatbelts on as they laughed helplessly at something he'd missed—or very possibly nothing at all—and getting into the driver's seat to wrangle the stick-shift into submission.

A glance in the rearview mirror at the _first stoplight_ confirmed that L had slid sideways like a tipped domino, the better to sleep on Light's shoulder. The glowing genius didn't seem to mind; on the contrary, he had managed to sling an arm around L before falling asleep as well, his head tilted back, a small smile blazoned across his lips.

Mello blinked, repeatedly and none too lucidly. Matt took a right turn as the stoplight changed, and, sure enough, Mello slumped against the window.

"_I kissed a girl_," he sang loudly, missing the key by a good half-mile, "_and I liked it—the taste of her cherry ChapStick_—"

Matt waited for the next line, but Mello snuggled up with the armrest and slept before it came.

Matt was still shaking his head when he pulled up behind Wammy's, having long since concluded that the back door was a much better bet.

At Matt's remorseless poke at Mello's shoulder, the blond started awake, crying indignantly, "Officer, I've never been more sober in my _life_!"

By some unexpected act of God, the resident club rats staggered out of the car and managed to make it through the back door without a single faceplant between the three of them.

Somebody had a damn good guardian angel.

Matt gripped the wheel in two hands and rested his forehead against it for a long couple of seconds. Then he reached out without lifting his head, fumbling for the latch to the glove compartment. He could've sworn he'd left some cigarettes in there in a moment of foresight, and he needed one, badly—

The latch gave, and the glove swung open like some wretched creature letting fall its jaw. White puzzle pieces spilled out onto the seat like so much sea foam.


	23. April in September

_Author's Note: All due credit to Eltea for the epicness. XD_

_We have seen Triforce tee-shirts. We considered getting Eltea one._

_This chapter has another of my favorite lines. For some reason it always makes me happy. XD_

* * *

XXIII. April in September

L felt the Slamming Headache of Death before he'd even opened his eyes.

Then he opened them and subsequently descended to a lower circle of hell yet.

It was the light, first—the white daylight streaming through the wide gap between the curtains, searing his eyes, instantly tripling the throbbing destruction ravaging his skull. He groaned into the pillow, and it was then that he realized that his hair was still tied back out of his face. A bit of tentative further scrutiny revealed that he was sprawled on top of his comforter, fully dressed in last night's ridiculous costume but for the boots, which he'd thankfully had the presence of sanity to kick off before succumbing to the bed's seductive advances.

…"seductive"…

Oh, _God_.

The churning in his stomach was half the alcohol and half the sick fear.

He pushed everything else to a series of ignominious backburners, however, when he saw the mountain of puzzle pieces on the bedside table, their bulk crowned with one of his personal Gothic-L Post-It notes, which read _Glove of the car – Matt._

L Lawliet was pretty sure he had never in his life been more inclined to go back to sleep and pretend that none of this had ever happened.

—

When Matt woke up at a perfectly reasonable hour the next morning, Mello was passed out on the bed next to his, fishnets still snaking up his arms. His hair was in his face, and his limbs were at strange angles, like broken birds' wings.

Matt had always been a bit of a pyro, so it wasn't much of a surprise that he elected to play with fire this fine morning.

He prodded Mello's arm.

"I hate you all," Mello sneered without opening his eyes.

"There's only one of me," Matt responded curtly. "Besides, it's hell of late; you should get u—"

"I will chop your hands off," Mello informed him, his eyes slits of ice-blue and bloodshot-red, "cut them into little pieces, and make you eat them."

Matt wrinkled his nose. "How will I hold the fork without hands?" he inquired.

Mello's eyes narrowed until they were virtually closed again. "_Die_," he hissed.

Matt sighed, exchanged pajamas for clothes, and went to go check on the others.

Judging by the scattered items of clothing and the damp towel on the floor, Light's hygiene issues had won out over his alcohol ones, and he'd hit the shower before sprawling on the bed, the covers drawn partway up his bare back.

Matt hoped he had pants on under there.

Sighing, he peeked in at L, too, who hadn't stirred either, and then he wandered the halls morosely, unsure what to do with his empty morning.

Kat seemed to have the same problem, though he doubted her friends were in the same condition as his—he encountered her in the corridor, down which she was strolling with a game box under her arm.

"Hiya, Acromatt," she greeted him brightly. "How goes it?"

Matt scowled and kicked at the carpet. "Everyone's really hungover from last night," he reported. "I've got nothing to do."

Kat frowned sympathetically, and then she hefted the large box to display the name. "Wanna play Battleship?" she asked.

Matt shrugged. "Sure," he decided.

x

"_Aaaaargh_," Matt griped.

"Sunk?" Kat prompted, beaming.

Matt grimaced. "Let's just say," he explained of his aircraft carrier, "that it's checking out real estate in Davy Jones's locker."

Kat cackled.

There was a creak of the floorboards in the hall, and then Mello was leaning against the doorframe that led to the playroom, clad only in a pair of plain black boxers and his crucifix.

Matt stared unabashedly in spite of his better judgment, which he had previously assumed was lurking around somewhere. He couldn't even raise a hand to slap himself across the face.

Mello ran his fingers through his tangled hair, his eyes still bloodshot.

"C'mere, Matt," he said.

There was a long pause.

"Are you guys gonna hook up?" Kat asked excitedly.

Matt stared at her, but Mello wasn't so perturbed.

"No," he answered calmly, a cool smirk toying with his lips. "Better. C'mon, Matty-Boy; you won't wanna miss this."

He didn't want to miss Kat's explanation of why she expected the two of them to hook up, either, but he followed Mello anyway, trying not to notice just how little draped over the curves and planes of the body moving languidly up the stairs before him.

Because this was Mello-Brand Mischief-Making, Matt had begun to worry as soon as he'd seen that familiar glint in the great green eyes, but it was when Mello approached Light's door, absently holding a finger to his lips—as though Matt had actually retained anything remotely resembling vocal capacities with his roommate dressed like that—that the redhead let the real panicking commence.

Mello twisted the doorknob slowly, pushed the door open just a crack, and slipped inside. Light was still lying on his front, insensible, hair spread like honey on the pillow, shoulders looking smooth and warm as they gently rose and fell, as though moved by a breeze.

Matt watched Mello creep across the room. He didn't have Silly String, or itching powder, or a bucket of ice-water, or shaving cream, or fake blood, or _any_ of the usual constituents of the Bag of Tricks. All he had was himse…

Oh, _no_. Mello,_ no_…!

The blond didn't notice—or didn't heed—the desperate brainwaves a mute Matt was casting feverishly in his direction. Instead, he lifted the edge of the coverlet and crawled carefully under it, stretching out spread-eagled next to Light.

This was the funniest thing _ever_—or it was about to be. This was funnier than the time they'd swapped the labels and replaced Fiona's hairspray with black dye.

So why the acid jealousy sizzling in his stomach and burning through the lining?

A series of severe ulcers shredding one's internal organs sounded like an extraordinarily unpleasant way to die.

Mello settled in the bed, laying his head on the second pillow, looking so angelic that the irony was painful. He waited for silence before sliding his arm slowly around Light's waist and closing his eyes.

There was a pause.

Then Light cracked an eye open, blinked both, stared in exquisite mortification, and extricated himself from both Mello's embrace and the tangle of his bedsheets so hastily that in fleeing he managed to wedge himself in the gap between the nightstand and the wall, the drawstring of his merciful pajama pants making friends with the alarm clock's cord.

Then, cowering, Light Yagami stared at Mello and screamed like a little girl.

Though the incredibly shrill sound had to have set the jackhammers to drilling in Mello's skull, perhaps the blond was too preoccupied with exultant triumph to notice.

Matt was laughing, too, helplessly, clinging to the doorframe to hold himself up, but every breath gasped in to laugh with left him feeling emptier than the one before.

Mello bounced up on the bed, the rosary swinging wildly, and then hopped off, darting over to a tremulous, tousled, wide-eyed Nightlight. Before Light could recoil, Mello pushed himself up on his toes and kissed the boy soundly on the cheek.

"April Fool's, Lampshade!" Mello cried—_cheekily_.

It wasn't even funny. The awful, terrible, _heinous_ pun wasn't even funny, because it was _Light_ that Mello had gone to, _Light_ that Mello had curled up with, _Light_ that Mello had touched, and held, and kissed, however facetiously. And that… wasn't… _fair_.

"It's _September_, you _twit_!" Light howled.

Unmoved and unrepentant, Mello bounded out of the room and scampered off, cackling. Matt turned away from the door without pausing to note Light's reaction and took to the stairs with leaden feet, pausing only to tell Katamaran that he forfeited the game before proceeding to the kitchen.

He buried his head in the fridge. There had to be cake in here _somewhere_, and if it worked for L…

"Hey, Matt…"

It was Light.

Matt closed his eyes and bit his tongue.

"Unuh?" he prompted around it.

"Are you okay?" Light asked.

"Mnm," Matt answered noncommittally. Maybe they hid it under the lettuce; no one would ever look there.

One of the kitchen chairs creaked as Light sat down in it.

"I think Mello values you more than you realize," he said. "Maybe even more than he realizes. And I think he's scared of how much you mean to him."

Matt freed his tongue and glanced over his shoulder at Light shrewdly. It was easy enough to _say_ that. It was even easy enough to believe it, at least until the little whore went and snuggled up with the nearest available genius, who just _happened_ to look like a Calvin Klein model—

Boy. _That_ was a slightly unsettling thought if Matt had ever had one.

Matt shut the fridge door but didn't release the handle, clenching and unclenching his fingers around it. "It's just—he treats me like—"

"Like he doesn't know what to do with you?" Light supplied, propping his chin up on one hand. "Because he doesn't seem to. It seems like he wants you as his best friend, but he wants you as more than that, too, and he doesn't know if he can have it both ways."

Matt shrugged, looking intently at a refrigerator magnet advertising a plumbing service, probably the one they'd had to call when Mello had flushed Fiona's "Scuba Adventure Barbie" doll down the toilet and flooded the whole basement.

The chair murmured again as Light got to his feet. "I think he'll eventually realize what he's got," the sunny solace-giver offered.

Matt looked at him bleakly. "How long," he asked, "do I have to wait?"

Almost before he knew what was happening, he'd been enveloped in a strange, sudden, awkward man-hug.

The really weird thing was that it actually helped.

Matt put his head down on Light's Calvin Klein model shoulder and listened to the drumming of his Calvin Klein model heartbeat in his Calvin Klein model chest, and it actually helped.

Matt had always suspected that the world enjoyed being slightly retarded in unexpected ways.

After a moment, he and Light separated, having both happened upon the inevitable realization that this was about to go from cute to creepy, and then they stood there with their hands in their respective pockets and cleared their respective throats.

Mello strolled in, dressed in the black jeans Matt had worn the night before and Matt's black tee-shirt with the gold Triforce on it.

"Is there chocolate on the premises?" he inquired.

Light and Matt shook their heads.

Sighing, Mello sat down at the table, folded his arms, and laid his chin on them. "Chocolate cures hangovers," he announced.

Matt found that slightly dubious—but then, Mello was under the impression that chocolate cured colds, coughs, cholera, Chlamydia, and cancer, so it didn't come as much of a surprise.

Before anyone had a chance to debate the medical applications of cocoa, L walked in. He was looking at a piece of cardboard, one inch at the bottom folded up as if to hold something that wouldn't stand up on its own.

"I have some bad news," he told them.

Light looked concerned and faintly ill. "How bad?" he managed.

"Bad," L said, shakily turning the cardboard to raise the puzzle—which was completed now but for a single missing piece—to reveal that the random marks they'd seen on the disparate pieces formed a clear, even letter: "with a capital _B_."


	24. Eight Damn Seconds

_Author's Note: Intense spoilers for 'Another Note.' Because. Um. They're necessary. XD Really sorry if you haven__'t read it already; it__'s fun, and I recommend it, but I know that not everybody has ready access to the thing in the first place._

_I__'m serious, though. I spoil practically everything in the entire book, so heads up. XD  
_

_Oh, and as much as I appreciate all the creative suggestions you guys have, this fic is already written in its entirety, so I'm afraid not much is going to change. XD_

* * *

XXIV. Eight Damn Seconds

They stared at the near-completed puzzle.

_Near_-completed. It figured.

Mello combed his fingers through his hair, frowning. That was a bitch of a pun if he'd ever seen one. And, living with the Mattrix, he'd seen _many_.

He really needed to free his mind.

Light bent to peer at the empty space in the puzzle where the cardboard showed.

"Did we miss one?" he asked uncertainly. "We were being led; it would be odd…"

Matt's back tightened the way it did when he got defensive. "I picked up all the ones in the car," he said before anyone could ask.

"You did wonderfully and rescued us all from ourselves, Matt-kun," L told him distractedly. "He must have left the space for a reason." He paused, and it looked like he was struggling to maintain his calm. "That does not sound unlike him."

Mello wrinkled his nose. He wasn't going to think about B. He made a general habit of trying not to think about B; there was just something _wrong_ with the guy, something that stuck with you like sweat in uncomfortable places and then went cold all at once when you stepped into an air-conditioned room.

What he needed to do was to think like Near.

He wouldn't have admitted it if there had been a firebrand closing in on his forehead, but he knew that the kid was smarter than he was, at least empirically speaking.

And, well, he was wearing loose clothes, which (_smelled like Matt_) were surprisingly comfortable, and he was sitting on a kitchen chair, and no one was really paying attention… There probably wouldn't be another moment like this one for a long time.

He drew one knee up to his chest, crooked his elbow around it, and slowly started twirling a finger in his hair.

_I love robots,_ he thought firmly. _ I love them more than life itself. Show me some matchsticks, and I will show you a skyscraper. Let me paint your figurines, _ba_by!_

Gears ground in his head.

_Holy shit,_ he realized; _it totally works!_

"Overlay it on the map," he said.

They all turned to stare at him. Hastily he disentangled his fingers from his hair and strove to look normal.

"Try putting the puzzle over the map," he repeated. "I think they're the same size."

L blinked once. Then everyone else made the mistake of blinking, and by the time they'd opened their eyes again, L was halfway up the stairs.

"Jesus, he's fast," Matt remarked, bounding after.

"Try playing tennis with him," Light replied.

Mello scrambled off the chair and followed, embarking on what might have been the longest staircase ascension in his life. When they finally bested it, however, they found L standing stock-still before the bed, looking at a three-layer sandwich composed of the cardboard, the map, and the puzzle.

It was like the cellulose baklava from hell.

…maybe he should never make like Near again. His figurative powers seemed to be suffering.

Matt went up on his toes to peek over L's shoulder. He stayed on his toes, silent, until his feet started shaking, at which point he had little choice but to step down. Light approached on L's other side, his hand rising as if it might perch on a taut shoulder, only to fall again as he changed his mind.

Or lost his nerve.

Then, as he saw Light pause, too, Mello finally ran out of patience and joined the crowd by the bed.

The puzzle-piece-shaped space squarely framed the crazy guy's castle.

The crazy guy who didn't show himself. The crazy guy who didn't come into town. The crazy guy who didn't hide his guests or his money or his noise pollution but _always_ hid his face.

B.

B was back.

B was here.

B had Near.

It was the most horrifying accidental couplet Mello had ever encountered, and he'd encountered some that had almost made his hair curl.

"Find that website again, Matt," Light instructed the redhead, voice tight. Matt went for L's computer. "We're going to the next party."

Wait a damn second. Wait _eight_ damn seconds.

"You want to walk right into his fortress?" Mello demanded. "Do you even know who B is?"

Light's eyes narrowed. "If he's so scary," he noted crisply, "then the sooner we get Near, the better."

"Ever heard of cosplay?" Matt asked from where he was sitting on the floor, curled over and around L's laptop.

Light raised an eyebrow.

Mello pulled out L's desk chair and claimed it. "B's batshit crazy," he explained. "He was one of the first kids who came here, but he just wanted to be better than L, so once he got out, he concocted this frigging ridiculous—"

"And almost effective," L murmured.

Mello waved it off. "So he tried to make an unsolvable case, which he was going to do by making himself his last victim, so that L couldn't find the culprit."

Speaking of L, the resident Greatest Detective had taken a seat on the bed and assumed the usual position. He glanced over, slightly perturbed. "I attempted to conceal most of the details of the case," he remarked. "Evidently I failed."

Mello grinned and jerked a thumb towards Matt. "Hacker," he reminded L.

The smile he earned was slightly grim. "Ah, yes."

"Anyway," Mello went on, ignoring Light's burgeoning bewilderment, "the chick working for L caught him before he sustained any irreparable burns, and then he went to go rot in prison." Er. "…supposedly."

"Since he's apparently out and setting up further batshit crazy plots," Light concluded.

"Including the party he's hosting tonight," Matt interjected, looking as though he'd been patiently waiting for the right moment to cut in.

"Tonight?" Light repeated. At Matt's confirmatory nod, he adopted a determined expression. "Tonight, then. That's plenty of time." Given his unsteady stomach and his throbbing head, Mello kind of begged to differ, but he wasn't sure he wanted to leap in front of the freight train that was Light's inability to shut up. "What kind of party is it, exactly?" the refulgent rapscallion asked Matt.

Matt scrolled down the page, bright eyes scanning lines of text. "Looks like…" He paused. "Hm."

Mello doubted either of the others knew just how ominous that sounded.

"What is it?" Light prompted.

Matt looked up. "Would you agree that B wants us to attend his party tonight?" he asked.

Light shrugged. "Seems like it. We're just going to have to go in with guns blazing—"

Matt looked to Mello. "Would you agree that B is a highly psychologically disturbed human being, presuming that he is, in fact, a human being?"

Mello nodded slowly.

Matt sighed and regarded the webpage morosely. "It's a couples' party," he said.

There was a pause.

"What are you trying to say?" Light inquired slowly.

Matt balanced his elbow on his knee and propped his chin up on his palm. "I'm trying to say," he replied, "that two of us have to dress up like girls."

"Not it," Light announced immediately.

"Oh, but _Light-o_," Mello snickered. "You're so pretty to _start_ with; just imagine what we could do with a little bit of mascara—"

"Categorically not," Light spat.

Mello turned to Matt, wide-eyed, and cupped a hand alongside his mouth. "_Some_body's insecure," he noted in an extremely loud stage whisper.

Matt smiled, raised a hand alongside his own mouth, and stage-whispered back, "Are _you_ going to be the girl, then?"

Er. Shit.

"Well," Mello drawled, covering quickly, "of _course_." He made a point of crossing one leg over the other and folding his hands daintily on his knee. "It takes a _real_ man to wear a dress and still look shit-sexy."

…'shit-sexy' did not rank in his Top Ten Best Coinages.

Light looked distinctly uncomfortable. He glanced at L.

L was staring at the puzzle as if other letters would join the arrogant boldness of the _B_ to spell out the answer.

"I have no qualms with cross-dressing, Light-kun," he muttered absently. "It wouldn't be the worst thing I'd done for a case."

Light's face blanched to a strange color. "What have you done, then?" he asked.

The tiniest hint of a smile crossed L's face. "A certain length of chain comes to mind," he remarked.

Light bit his lip on a grin. "Right," he said.

—

Maybe it was the uninterrupted months with the Questionable (saying "Kinky" would just encourage the boys) Chain, but it always scared Light nigh-on shitless when Ryuzaki went quiet. As what might have been an inevitable result of the proximity, Light knew what that quiet meant. He saw Ryuzaki's faith in humanity failing as the arms tightened around the knees. He always thought of a rowboat—a rowboat buffeted by gray ocean waves, the cold water seeping through the cracks where the pitch between the boards was failing, rivulets running down the sides and pooling at the bottom of the rickety vessel.

He hoped that rowboat never sank.

In the interest of preserving it, when Mello, Matt in tow, stampeded down the stairs chattering about sizes, colors, accessories, and his butt looking fat, Light sat carefully on the bed, a comforting but respectful distance from the curled figure that was occupying it.

"Do you want to talk about it, Ryuzaki?" he asked.

A riotous dark head lifted, and gray eyes appraised him with a hollowness that made him feel suddenly cold.

"You don't have to call me that."

Light swallowed, trying for a hesitant smile. "What would you rather I call you?"

Ryuz—whoever he was—breathed twice before he spoke.

"My name is L," he said. "Just L. L Lawliet."

"L," Light whispered.

L—he had to touch his tongue to his teeth for it—looked away.

"We failed." The voice was always low, but there was an unwonted sharpness to it now. "B wasn't the first. A took an entire bottle of sleeping pills. The note he left—'I don't want bags under my eyes; I don't want to glow like the computer screen; I don't want to live here and die here and cut my teeth on the jagged edges of a world that can't see me.' B was already slipping by then. We should have seen it, but we wanted to believe…" L settled lower, curled smaller, protected himself a little more. "After that, we let them choose their own names, and we expanded the facilities and the program. It is unfortunate that 'Wammy's Home for Extraordinary Children' sounds so much like the name of an asylum."

It didn't seem to be a joke. Luckily, Light managed to transmute his uneasy laugh into a noise of agreement.

L loosened his arms about his knees, opening his hands to look at his palms as if he'd never seen them before. "When you see a child become what B became… How could that not have been our fault? We were his world—we provided his jagged edges and his computer screens, and he didn't refuse them. How much can you say was there when he began? How much of it belonged to him, and how much did we put into him?" Pale eyes met Light's again, mist-eyes, smoke-eyes, steel-eyes. "He killed three people and would have finished with himself. Matt-kun is right. This isn't a normal human being we're dealing with. They weren't crimes of passion; he planned every detail down to the painstakingly deliberate clues he left behind. That indicates a level of psychological imbalance that scares me, Light-kun. You can't predict someone like that. You can't reason with them. They are hardly human anymore, and…"

L closed his eyes for a long moment. He looked so damn _tired_ that Light ached just watching him pull himself together.

"At risk of sounding conceited," L sighed, "it's me he's after."

Light opened his mouth to ask something, realized he didn't know what to ask, and shut his mouth again. He rinsed and repeated a few times before managing, "Why—?"

A ghost of a smile crossed L's face. "Because the point of A and B was to serve as eventual replacements for me. A felt he couldn't meet that expectation, and he gave up before anyone could tell him that he didn't have to. B sought instead to become me, and then to surpass me. In some ways, he succeeded."

A violent conviction stirred in Light's chest at the thought.

"Nobody can do either of those things," he decided, "L."

L smiled, more strongly this time. "You are distinctly delusional, Light-kun," he concluded. "Fortunately, it looks extremely good on you."

Light grinned slowly, and then he leaned in, lifting a hand to L's cheek, cool-warm skin beneath his fingertips, and tilted his head, his eyes sliding shut—

There was a squeal that could have shattered the foundations of a fortress with the blunt force of its seismic capacity.

"Mello wasn't lying!" Fiona howled down the stairs. "They _did_ make out! They're going to make out again _right now_!"

Before Light had adequate time to process the implications of the statement, there was a teeming crowd of preteens jostling in the doorway, Fiona beaming eagerly at their head.

Baffled at the girl's singular talent for mustering the troops, Light looked at L.

"That kind of ruins the moment," he said numbly.

"Light-kun's lack of creativity," L replied blithely, sliding a knuckle down his jaw with one hand and reeling him in by his shirtfront with the other, "is disheartening."

Light was temporarily deaf from the ecstatic shrieking, but the kiss was worth it.


	25. More Mascara

_Author's Note: It's always weird, seventy-five pages later, to look back and be like, "Where the hell did this start, and what was I smoking then…?"_

_Transvestitism is a time-honored family tradition. As are egregiously awful puns. 8D_

* * *

XXV. More Mascara

Mello ran the brush through his bangs for the umpteenth time, batting his eyelashes absently at the mirror.

"Yes, sir," he answered in a whisper so demure it might well pass for female. "Thank you, sir. I'm afraid, sir, that my party would notice my absence if we got busy upstairs, sir, and it'd be very awkward, sir, if you noticed certain anomalies in my anatomy."

It was uncomfortably plausible. He was pretty damn sexy. Maybe _too_ damn sexy. "Girl" was a disturbingly good look for him.

He tossed his hair expertly over his shoulder, flashed himself a lipstick-lined smile, smoothed his dress, and sat on the countertop to fight his way into the heels.

Heels were a _bitch_, but there wasn't much to be done for that. Skanky girls like the one he'd been preening in the bathroom mirror didn't wear flats. It was stilettos or bust in this business.

Bust an Achilles tendon, that was.

And he did have to admit that they did a nice number on his calves.

Not that he was too keen on the idea of making a habit of all this, however unsettlingly well it worked.

He sighed, not too unhappily, and sashayed a few laps around the bathroom. Fake cleavage or no fake cleavage, real women didn't trip on their own heels and eat the nice hardwood when they went to parties.

Well, not often.

He posed, pursing his lips, and admired the shameless gold-digger in the mirror.

Needed more mascara.

Everything could do with more mascara.

—

Matt stared at his dresser until he thought that his sleep-deprived eyes would bleed.

Light lugged his suitcase in and heaved it onto the bed, the springs of which protested vociferously.

Matt would have protested vociferously, too, if he'd had that much concentrated clothing slammed in his face.

Light didn't dig through his clothes; he sorted through them carefully. Everything was neatly folded, to the point that Matt was beginning to suspect that Light kept Folding Gnomes in the zipper pocket, and they came out at night to make his things more orderly.

"Formal clothes I can do," Light was saying to himself. "Sketchy club? That's a challenge. Semi-formal? You got your man."

"Are you sure you have it under control?" Matt asked.

Light glanced up from the brushes-and-chisels suitcase excavation. "I think so," he answered. "Why?"

Matt pointed to the door, around the frame of which Kat, Fiona, and a few of the latter's posse were peeking somewhat less than surreptitiously.

"Need help?" Fiona chirped, looking at Light as though he'd fallen from heaven and landed in her backyard.

Perhaps the sandbox had cushioned his landing.

Man, if all you had to do to get the royal treatment around here was to make out with another guy, Matt was just going to—

Um. Nothing.

—

Light had to admit that Fiona, for all her conspicuous displays of ditziness, really knew her stuff.

Though he had thought it within his rights to refuse the rhinestone-studded necklace she'd pushed at him.

A man had to draw the line somewhere.

Satisfied, he smoothed the front of his black vest, pulled at the cuffs of his white dress shirt, flicked an imaginary crease out of his black slacks, and straightened his silver tie.

Yeah. He looked _damn_ good.

He glanced over at Fiona's other mannequin, who she'd dolled up in a snappy navy blue suit. The two of them were struggling with his tie, which was, predictably, black-and-white-striped.

"Here," Light interjected, approaching. He snatched the article, twirled it around his own neck, and tugged it into a neat Half-Windsor.

"Whoa-ho," Matt said, grinning. "_Two_ ties? Boy's asking for trouble."

"Or asking to be hanged," Light replied, sliding the knot down, slipping it off, and transferring it to Matt's neck where it belonged.

Matt adjusted it appropriately, stood up taller, made a supercilious face, and then tugged at his lapels. "Do you think it _suits_ me?" he inquired, breaking into a grin.

Light smirked, folding his arms. "I think it's suitable," he responded.

Matt considered the mirror Fiona was holding up for him and fixed his goggles atop his head.

"It might be illegal to be this sexy," he noted. "I hope nobody files a suit."

Light grinned. "Don't thank me," he said. "Thank my suitcase."

Matt waggled a reprimanding finger. "Can't use that," he censured airily. "It was the same sense of the word. Breaks the rules."

Light blinked. "There are rules?" he asked.

"Volumes full," Matt confirmed, not seeming to notice the way that Fiona was bouncing like a yo-yo behind him, trying to steal the goggles off of his head.

He noticed when she succeeded, however, but grabbed for them too late—she'd already shoved them down her shirt for safekeeping.

Matt scowled. "Did you learn that from Mello?" he inquired archly.

Fiona affected innocence. "Maybe," she replied.

Matt held a hand out, palm up. "Well, fork 'em over. I'm driving, and I need 'em to see."

Stoutly, Fiona shook her head, crossing her arms protectively over her chest.

"Damn it, woman!" Matt sighed, but he went over to the desk anyway, scrabbled along the backboard for a key, and used said key to unlock the top left-hand drawer, from which he retrieved a red case.

It yielded, from its plush lining, a pair of slick frameless glasses that drastically magnified and emphasized Matt's royal blue eyes.

There was a pause.

"_Smokin'_," Fiona decided, eagerly.

Matt blushed. "Not allowed to inside," he responded.

"Holy hell," Light agreed. "You look like a lawyer, Matts Domino."

"Objection," Matt retorted, grinning. He closed the case.

Light died a little bit inside.

But in a good way.

x

When Fiona presented them dramatically at the foot of the stairs, Light encountered one of the greatest conflicts of his life as she moved out of the way.

Before he had time to fortify his retinas and/or blind himself with a sharp utensil, Mello's blood-red dress, black stockings, and stiletto heels were scarring him for all eternity.

Then Light saw the fake boobs and the sultry makeup, and he considered himself lucky he didn't pass out on the spot—which probably would have proved disastrous, given that he was still on the stairs behind Matt.

Mello smirked, touched the beads of the crucifix that disappeared among his cleavage, and curled the other hand about one hip. "Undressing me with your eyes?" he inquired. His fingernails matched his dress; they flashed as he flicked his hair over one shoulder. "Don't worry; I was doing it in the mirror. I'd tap me."

"Mello-kun would also have us rest assured that we do not want to know where he acquired the pieces of his costume," a familiar voice remarked dryly.

Slightly alarmed, Light glanced over at the slender, delicate woman—or _not_—perched on the edge of the nearest armchair. L had disappeared beneath a shimmering black dress that draped—mercifully and quite unlike Mello's—to his ankles and further still, the fabric of a train pooling around his silk-slippered feet. Black silk gloves climbed past L's elbows (damn Matt to a thousand goggle-less hells), and he drew a lacy shawl close about his shoulders. The clincher was the gauzy veil, ornamented with ribbons and black pearls, that somewhat eerily concealed his vast gray eyes. The black silk rose settled over his right ear, emerging gracefully from among smooth dark hair (tamed again, but loose now about his pale neck and shawl-swathed shoulders), was just icing on the cake.

So to speak.

Light was very, very, _very_ confused. What the hell were you supposed to do when hot boys made just as gorgeous girls?

There was some small encouragement to be found in the fact that Matt seemed to be facing a similar dilemma.

Light doubted that there was much of a precedent for this sort of thing.

He was suddenly and wildly tempted to snap a cell phone picture of Mello and send it to Misa with the explanation, "my nu gf."

…or to Matsuda.

Fortunately, he retained some crucial part of his sanity, shook his head, and collected himself.

"Shall we go?" he inquired.

"_Wait_!" Kat wailed, her flip-flops sounding like twin machineguns as she careened heedlessly down the stairs. Before Light could articulate a caveat, she had vaulted off of the bottom step, leapt half her height, and jammed a black fedora onto Light's head.

As she bent double, panting, he tipped it, smiling in spite of himself.

"Thank you," he told her.

Kat waved a weary hand. "You bet," she managed.

"Light delights in Kat's hat," Matt noticed innocently.

"Quite right, that Matt," Light commented to Kat.

She grinned, eyes sparking again, apparently revived. "Goofs," she decided. "Get out of here already."

—

"This is probably much safer," Matt explained, holding the back door open for them.

L had to agree. The less people saw him this way, the better. Kinky Chains aside, cross-dressing wasn't exactly his forte.

It came as no surprise when Quillish appeared from around the corner of the House just as they were sneaking towards the convertible, because the world was a terrible and sadistic place at the best of times.

Quillish appeared to be trying not to laugh.

"It's for a _case_, Wammy!" Mello shouted, less-than-daintily.

"I said nothing," Quillish declared.

Mello eyed him suspiciously. "Your nothings speak volumes," he retorted.

Quillish smiled equably. "So does your dress," he replied.

x

"Don't you think we're a little conspicuous?" Mello asked absently from where he sat next to L.

Light in the passenger seat literally turned around to stare at him incredulously.

"Mello," he said. "As much as I have come to respect you, you _cannot_ talk about being conspicuous."

Mello smirked prettily. "It is pretty difficult to hide how sexy I am, isn't it?"

Light made a strangled noise and retreated to his seat.

Mello gave a particularly low evil laugh that was very much at odds with his appearance.

Through the hazily dark figment of the veil, L gazed out the window, smiling faintly, and watched the road signs draw them closer and closer to the creature's den.


	26. Ladies and Gentlemen

_Author's Note: The part of my brain that usually makes up names was not working. Mea culpa._

_Also, for the record, this chapter was written the day the United States of America elected Barack Obama. :O_

…_and now you've got a time frame; good heavens. XD_

* * *

XXVI. Ladies and Gentlemen

Matt had a bad feeling about all of this crap. Maybe it was the whole strolling-into-the-heart-of-danger thing. It was just so much easier to leap headfirst into the lava-lined pit of destruction and despair when you had some extra lives, a new gun, and a recent save point under your weapons belt…

Also, fortunately or unfortunately, the tie was making hyperventilation an impossibility.

In addition, Mello might or might not had been eyeing him in the rearview mirror, which was even more distracting.

He was grateful for traffic lights, which, although they were poignantly similar in color to Mello's dress (a phrase that he suspected would never cease to sound strange in his head), gave him a chance to settle down and breathe for a couple seconds.

Breathing was an advisable first step. If his heartbeat continued to cooperate as well, he'd be in pretty good shape.

That considered, he'd better not let himself catch another glimpse of Mello's black-stocking-clad legs. The first had made all his vital systems go haywire, and another would probably shut everything down completely, like when Mello unplugged the power strip right before the final boss just to piss Matt off.

Pissing Matt off seemed to be one of Mello's favorite hobbies.

Which explained why he was kicking the back of Matt's seat.

"Green light, Matty-Boy," Mello announced. "Do we need to stop by the optometrist's?"

"You might be blind as a Matt," Light muttered, almost inaudibly.

Boy. If Snogami was nervous enough to start punning at a stoplight, they were in deep shit.

The road was too short, and as they neared (of course) the end of it, stone walls rose austerely from the height of the hill. It was a grandiose thing, this castle was—half-ostentatious mansion, half-fortress, thirteen blood-red pennants snapping in the wind, the slate-colored stone sharp and imposing everywhere except the leftward wing, where a part of the structure had crumbled. A tower had collapsed upon itself, though the outer wall hid the worst of the destruction. Matt imagined shattered stone like an aura or a bloodstain, splinters of wood scattered with abandon.

Cringing as gravel pinged like laser-fire, Matt guided the car up the snaking incline to the wide parking lot and found a nice, empty space close to the exit. You never knew when you might need an escape strategy. Any video game could tell you _that_.

Light hopped out of the car, opened L's door, and offered him a hand. The veil concealed the nuances, but the way L ducked his head and tentatively accepted, gathering his skirt in the other hand, led Matt to believe that he was blushing happily.

It was so adorable it made his teeth ache.

Could you get cavities from cuteness?

"Hey, Mattso," Mello called. "You gonna treat me like a lady?"

"You're sick," Matt informed him, yanking the door open and finding the drawbridge and portcullis that took the place of a driveway extraordinarily interesting.

Mello started delicately down the walk, beaming over his shoulder, danger in his dark eyes. "You can examine me later, doctor," he replied.

Matt made a point of shuddering.

Mello strode across the drawbridge without so much as wobbling on his heels, but when they approached the stairs ushering them up to the pair of open front doors, he glanced back at L holding tightly to Light's arm. Apparently inspired, he darted over and seized Matt's forearm likewise, batting his overstated eyelashes elaborately.

"Did you bring a hammer?" he asked.

Matt blinked at him, taking the stairs slowly—as steady as he was on those stilettos, Mello wasn't looking where he was walking, and Matt didn't want a faceplant on his hands.

Or his feet.

"Why would I?" he prompted.

Mello's evil grin was even more dramatic framed by the shimmer of the lipstick.

"Because you look like you want to bang me into the floor," he answered innocently.

Matt tripped.

He caught himself before Mr. Face eloped with Ms. Front Step and looked up dazedly to see Mello smirking wider still.

"Nail me, baby," he added, "or screw me in tight if you prefer."

"You're enjoying this far too much," Matt decided, trying to disentangle his arm from Mello's warm, unyielding hands.

"On the contrary," Mello rejoined, "I'm enjoying this just the right amount."

—

Light saw to their reservation, waiting while the solemn butler—painstakingly traditional in an impeccable tux all in black and white but for the red rosebud in his buttonhole—flipped his plodding way to the very back of the guestbook, where _Yagami_, the only name they could give and verify with ID, ought to be scrawled innocently. Sure enough, it dutifully turned up, and they were nodded in and permitted to move past security guards blithely decked in sunglasses despite the dimness of the hall. Light surrendered his fedora at the coat check, and then tapestries and candelabras drew them deeper into the deliberate grandeur of the castle. The hall opened into a vast, palatial, high-ceilinged room with dining tables and a dance floor, beyond which an orchestra was warming up at the front of a low stage, a black velvet curtain draping behind them. Instruments, jewelry, cuff links, fake smiles, and endless dozens of champagne glasses gleamed in unison.

"This is nice," Light remarked, trying to process the entire panorama. He noticed a massive dessert table and shifted in preparation to nudge L with his elbow before remembering first that L was _on _his elbow and second that one did not dig one's elbow into the ribs of an elegant young women who was in mourning, regardless of how much one might want such an elegant young woman's attention.

He nodded to it instead; pointing didn't sound much better.

"There's lots of cake," he noted.

L's soft voice wafted gently from behind the veil. "He knows how I feel about cake. He may have poisoned the strawberries." Light sensed that L frowned, and he thrilled faintly and involuntarily at the notion that he could read the beautiful creature at his side with that degree of accuracy. "I should have thought to bring some sugar cubes. They've very portable."

"I'm sure Mel…issa… has some chocolate," Light managed. Then he remembered what dreadful little Mello's outfitting left to the imagination. "…somewhere," he amended.

Speaking of the boy Light hadn't thought was physically capable of looking _more_ like a cheap prostitute…

"Where'd they go?" he asked.

L turned to scour the room as well. Light strained his ears, trying to filter the general hubbub of subdued small-talk and clinking champagne glasses for one of two specific voices.

He succeeded.

"Do you like cherries?" Mello was inquiring sweetly.

Light tired to pinpoint the sound and traced it to the drinks table, where Matt, looking rather sourer than his companion, was struggling to extricate himself from the blond's red-nailed clutches.

"If you finish that thought, Mel," Matt gritted out, prying Mello's fingers from his sleeve one by one, "you're going to get kicked out on your pretty little ass."

Mello gazed at him, faux-star-struck. "You think it's pretty?" he gasped.

Light turned to L. "Should we save him?" he asked.

"Save whom?" L murmured, sounding as though he was smiling wryly. "Matt is in grave danger of being overexposed to miserable pickup lines, but Mello is in equal danger of getting messily dismembered."

Light considered. "Good point," he decided. "I suppose I should say, 'Should we save them?'"

"It might be wise," L agreed, accordingly beginning to tug him towards the place where Matt and Mello were eyeballing each other like a pair of rival cowboys at high noon.

"Mello-kun," L reprimanded quietly when they were close enough to the Terrible Twosome and out of earshot of everyone else, "please stop propositioning Matt-kun. You seem to be making him uncomfortable—"

Mello raised an eyebrow and shot a sultry look at Matt. "Maybe we should go somewhere more _accommodating_," he suggested.

It took all of Light's willpower to suppress the gag reflex.

Matt looked calmly at L. "Slut-Princess Barbie isn't here right now," he explained, frighteningly deadpan, "but if you leave a message after the expletive, she'll get back to you as soon as she's finished doing the entire football team right on the field, grass stains be damned—"

"He's just jealous I don't lower his rates when he scores a goal," Mello confided.

L's hand disappeared under the veil as he touched a thumb to his lips. It looked like the argument had lost its charm, and he'd moved on to the next topic of concern.

"Perhaps we should scope out the situation," he mused. "I presume that, as we've completed the puzzle and reached the stronghold, this should be the last stage of the game, which makes it likely that Near is somewhere in the house. We might split up to search for him; there is a great deal of ground to cov—"

A portly man in a bow-tie inserted himself into their huddled circle, smiling genially.

"Good evening," he rumbled by way of greeting. "I don't believe I've ever encountered you at one of Mister Burgundy's affairs."

"This is our first," Light replied smoothly. "Are you a regular, then?"

The man laid his chubby hand over his heart. "Not one to miss a party, at any rate," he noted. He extended that hand to Light. "John Falstaff, at your service."

Light shook. "Light Yagami," he returned.

Falstaff bent low, his cummerbund straining, to touch his lips to the glove over L's hand. "Hiding your woman from the world?" he asked Light, winking. "Not a bad strategy, with men like me around. Does my lady have a name?"

"Elle LaRue," L whispered, settling both hands on Light's arm again. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"All mine," Falstaff replied.

It was probably true.

Then Falstaff discovered Slut-Princess Barbie.

"_My_," he said, awed. "My, _my_. What _have_ we here?"

Mello gave a truly mortifying giggle and offered the hand that wasn't cradling a drink. Falstaff took it quite gladly, his eyebrows going into overdrive, as if he was using them to convey a complicated message.

"We have Melissa Davenport," Mello sang. "Pleased to meet you."

Matt was glowering with no little amount of skill as he grudgingly made his own introduction.

"So," Falstaff blustered, patting absently at his capacious stomach. "Might I ask what any and all of you do for a living?"

There was a pause. _Well, the blond boy—er, yes, he is, actually—and the redhead are genius-orphans, and my… boyfriend…? and I are professional detectives, and we're really only here because the resident albino miniature Einstein back at the House got kidnapped by its creepiest reject._

…what was it people always said about lies being more plausible than the truth?

Light blinked at Falstaff.

"I write an advice column," he said.

He had a whole three seconds of triumph before Mello snorted laughing and sprayed champagne all over the intricate granite tiles of the floor.


	27. Not in Kansas

_Author's Note: Wikipedia tells me that bobby pins are called "hair grips" in British English. Whoa. Just… whoa._

_Thanks very much to Eltea for helping with Mello's pickup lines. XD We were on the phone for forty minutes, and a lot of it was that. Ilu, bb. ^^_

Damn_. This chapter was challenging. XD_

_More fanart from rappelezfille, this time of Mello in his oh-so tactful dress, makes me a very happy Tierfal!! :D Check for a profile link very soon. :D  
_

* * *

XXVII. Not in Kansas

L's nerves had gone from tight-as-spandex to taut-as-a-bowstring.

…the spandex bit was an assumption; he had never plagued his defenseless body with spandex. What kind of horrible person would do that to him- or herself?

Bowstrings he had more experience with, though he was deftest with his own limbs. He should have thought to try some of his most reliable moves in the dress—another oversight to tack onto the list of them.

He admired the serrated steak knives set out on the dining tables, vaguely listening to Light going on at length about how to solve the world's problems in five hundred words or less, one column at a time, and wondered if he could find a convenient place to hide such an object.

He sorely missed his jeans. There was very little you couldn't conceal in those blessed pockets without anyone being the wiser.

He blamed Light for his ludicrous unpreparedness. The boy had taught him how to let his guard down.

The orchestra seemed to be approaching the end of their rehearsing. A violin shrieked, and a chill rippled down L's spine.

A faint touch to Light's shoulder caught the boy's attention.

"Do you think you might assist me in finding the ladies' room?" L murmured, attempting once again to make his voice softer without letting the pitch slip any lower.

Light understood, as he always did. "Of course," he replied. Sweeping a warm arm about L's waist, he smiled at the assembled company. "We'll be back after a quick little expedition," he told them.

"Bathroom's just—_oh_. _That_ kind of expedition." Falstaff grinned wickedly and threw Light a painfully obvious wink.

L appreciated the veil more than ever: he had just gone from wide-eyed and flushing to murderously offended in a matter of seconds. That sort of transition would probably frighten most people.

Before his mouth could betray him by commenting on Falstaff's person—or perhaps his mother—L seized Light's hand and led the boy through and out of the room. A curving stone staircase segued into another hall, this one more modernized, warm wood paneling sheathing the walls and a lush carpet spanning the floor.

"I'm going to do some reconnaissance," L informed Light, trying to concentrate through the bewilderment engendered by the unusual clothes, the flickering candles, and, most distracting of all, Light's fingers strolling up the part of his arm that the glove concealed, seeking his bare shoulder beneath the shawl. "Since the party at large will apparently assume that we're having sex in the bathroom," he went on with some difficulty, "you could search in another direction without being missed."

There was a forty percent chance that Light hadn't heard a word of that.

"Mmhm…"

…forty-five.

Light leaned in, his palm pushing the shawl aside, his warm breath ghosting over L's neck. "Maybe we should vindicate their suspicions…"

L smiled, running his fingers once through Light's hair. "I think you forget why we're actually here, Light-kun," he remarked.

"You make me forget everything," Light replied, his lips against L's skin, his murmur moist. "It's terrifying, and I love it."

L took the boy's inimitable face in both hands and forced Light to meet his eyes. "I will make you forget your entire childhood, Light-kun," he promised, "if you focus for me now."

Light stole his hands and kissed his palms. Suddenly L hated the gloves.

"I'll hold you to it," Light decided. He ducked out of reach and headed down the hallway, throwing one last enigmatic smile over his shoulder.

L took a moment to compose himself. Once the veil was in place, his shawl was arranged, and he wasn't feeling quite so inclined to tackle a certain Japanese genius to the floor and rip said genius's clothes right off, L started down the hall in the opposite direction, taking care to open every door he came across.

There were a few that were locked, but the bobby pins that had heretofore secured the rose in his hair solved that problem quite efficiently.

The torque wrench he'd slipped down his bodice didn't hurt either.

—

Matt looked like he wanted to tear John Falstaff's throat out, throw it on the floor, and grind it into the parquetry with his heel.

Mello was thinking he ought to start a book or a blog or some shit, because moments like this one were just too damn good not to be immortalized.

Such a format would also give him the opportunity to describe at length how painfully frigging sexy Matt was looking on this particular evening. He was half-serious about all the raunchy lines. Who _wouldn't_ want a suited, bespectacled Matt doing them a favor or two?

Or three?

Or just _doing_ them in general?

Honestly.

It wasn't that Matt wasn't usually hot—dear Lord, he was. It was just that he was usually _hot_, not _imbued with the incredible intensity of a thousand flaming suns all going supernova in implausible unison_.

Falstaff paused in relating the endless chronicle of his exes to notice Matt following the meanderings of a champagne-bearing waiter with blazing blue eyes.

"Designated driver?" he prompted, raising his own flute. It was his third just since he'd joined the conversation. Accordingly, his grin was slightly lopsided, and crinkles spread from hazy eyes. "Pity. I always end up using the limo service; I can't be bothered to stay in a condition to drive back."

"Dear Matthew likes it, though—don't you, Matty?" Mello butted in guilelessly before Matt could reply. "I know I like to _ride_ late at night. Matty drives me _all the way home_."

Matt's eyes were dark, and uneven blotches of pink were creeping into his cheeks. He looked like his will was about to break, which begged the question of what would happen when it did.

Mello was betting that somebody would get their head bitten off. _Finally_.

"Elle and Light have been gone quite a while," Matt noted coolly. "Maybe we should go check on them."

Mello mouthed _check them out_ at Falstaff, who laughed uproariously.

Matt didn't look quite so amused. Furthermore, he closed iron fingers around Mello's wrist and commenced hauling him out of the room.

Mello waved to Falstaff, who gave him a thumbs-up.

"Gee, Matty," Mello giggled as Matt started scanning one of the innumerable identical halls, presumably for abandoned articles of L and Light's clothing. "You don't have to _drag_ me around to get me alone—"

Matt turned on him abruptly, the candlelight playing on an implacable, impregnable frown.

"Do you mean it?" he demanded. "Or are you just bullshitting for fun?"

Mello gazed at him with wide, innocent eyes. "I don't know what you mean, Matty," he murmured, sliding a finger along his bottom lip. "I mean… I wish I was a tornado, so that I could blow you into next we—"

He would have finished the sentence if Matt hadn't shoved him up against the wall and kissed him so hard his head spun. There were hands on his waist, warmer than he'd expected, and then they were planted on his hips, the heels of them pushing him mercilessly against the edge of the frame of a painting that wobbled precariously as a result.

The wallpaper grated on his bare shoulders as he slid away from it. Like hell he was going to ruin this by bringing a portrait down on Matt's head.

Man, he really _did_ need a blog.

For the moment, he settled with burying both hands in Matt's hair and yanking the boy in as close as a certain set of ersatz cleavage would allow.

Matt's mouth was supple and commanding, and he fought to keep up amidst the wild fireworks bursting in his brain, lighting the short fuse of every damn nerve—it was a tingling at first, a prickling that solidified into a deep, deep burn.

Matt drew back, his eyes glowing like flares, and smirked.

"Not in Kansas anymore," he remarked. "Are we, _bitch_?"

Mello's reply, though certainly obscene, was more of a request than an actual insult, and he reeled Matt back in to prove it, scrabbling with the other hand for a doorknob he swore he'd seen.

—

Light jiggled the door handle. Nothing. He pressed his eye to the crack in the door, but he couldn't see the contents of the room—just more of the halo of yellow light that spilled out where the door didn't quite meet the frame. After a moment of hesitation, he knocked, but there was no answer.

What he needed was somebody with a lock-pick.

Or a miracle.

Difficult to say which was harder to come by these days.

He fished his phone out of his pocket, hit the first speed-dial, and raised it to his ear. Five uneventful rings later, it clicked to a message machine, and he hung up uncertainly. Maybe L had found something.

Well, if Mello could hide chocolate under that dress, he could probably hide lock-picking supplies.

And God knew what else.

No, God probably didn't want to know, either.

Light skipped down a half-staircase to another hall, glancing every which way in an attempt to determine where he'd come from and how to get back there.

As he passed a closet, he heard a whole lot of mumbling.

"Matt—"

"_Ow_—loosen it first—"

"_Mmmn_, wait—"

Light rolled his eyes. He should have started making bets on what they'd be doing the next time—trading shoes, maybe?

He flung the door open, making sure to scowl disapprovingly. "You guys are _so_—"

Mello had one stocking-clad foot against the left wall for leverage, and both of the dress's straps had been pushed off of his shoulders. Matt was in worse shape yet—his jacket had disappeared; his tie was half-undone; the first three buttons of his shirt had yielded to Mello's red-tipped fingers, which were working on the fourth; his hair was in total disarray; and the coveted glasses were askew.

They both looked up, Mello from leaving an extremely obvious hickey on Matt's throat.

Light wanted to say something that involved "disgraceful."

All he managed was "_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUGH_!"

He considered himself lucky that a few resilient parts of his brain had managed to stave off a complete short-circuit by the time Matt and Mello approached the corner in which he was huddled, rocking back and forth and trying to erase images that could not be un-seen.

"Aw, can it," Mello told him. "Just because he's hotter than you."

"I don't know if he can can it," Matt reported cheerfully, his grin almost eliminating his other features. "Though it isn't until he chooses to _can-can_ it that I think we'll be in real trouble."

A little more of Light's soul withered and died.


	28. Un–Picking

_Author's Note: Wikipedia is trying to turn me into a Brit. Switchblade equals "flick knife"?_

_(And sorry for the late update—unpacking at school takes eons. O_o)_

_This is not in perfectly chronological order, because suspense is our friend. :D  
_

* * *

XXVIII. Un-Picking

Light pulled himself together by force of will alone. He was a cop, damn it—he was an officer of the Japanese police, and a good one, and he was going to march in there and rescue that damn albino boy from harm if it was the last damn thing he damn well did.

He heaved himself to his feet and brushed the worst of the creases out of his clothes.

"So where's L?" Matt inquired.

"I don't know," Light admitted, making a face. "We split up to look for Near. I found a locked door with a light on inside, but I can't get in."

Mello grinned. "The second thing you learn at Wammy's is how to pick locks," he announced.

Light didn't think he wanted to ask, but he bit the bullet. "What's the first?"

Mello shrugged. "Probably something about respect or camaraderie or something. Hell if I know; I didn't wake up until they were talking about the useful stuff."

The emotion Light was feeling was not surprise. He wasn't sure what it was, but _surprise_ he had ruled out.

"Come on, then," he urged them. "It's just this way."

Every one of these damn halls looked the same. They were all shadowy corners and ornate candelabras, which didn't make for any decent landmarks to judge by.

Had he seen the painting of the nymphs and the wolf before? He paused to grimace. Romanticism was all good and well, but this was kind of grisly.

He glanced back and saw that Matt and Mello had partially disappeared into an alcove with a convenient shelf, down upon which the former had shoved the latter. Most of Matt was visible, as were Mello's extremely suggestive legs, which were kicking aimlessly in the air as highly indicative noises emanated from the infelicitous place they'd chosen.

"A_hem_," Light said when his stomach settled.

Matt looked up quizzically, lips swollen, eyes bright. "Yes?" he prompted, breathless.

"We're here for a reason," Light noted.

That sounded awfully familiar.

Matt smiled. "We can multitask," he promised.

That was not exactly the answer Light had been looking for.

Unexpectedly, Mello heaved himself to his stiletto-stilted feet, latched onto Matt's sleeve, and started staggering determinedly down the hall.

"C'mon, Matt," he agreed. "You can sex me up after we get Near out of here. It'll be more comfortable anyway."

Matt beamed. "Okay!"

Distinctly, examining the Oriental rug intently, Light imagined scouring his mind with a toothbrush. He scraped diligently at even the most innocuous of thoughts, sacrificing them to the cause of removing everything that involved Matt and Mello in dark rooms, alone with their dirty minds.

Which only went to show that _he_ had a dirty mind, of course.

Damn it. It was this house. It just made him want to clench all his fingers in L's smooth, smooth hair, brace him against the wall, trace every line of him, learn every piece, taste every patch of skin—

_Bad Light,_ he thought firmly. _BAD LIGHT._

Sadly, slapping himself would have made his hypocrisy rather obvious, so he had to refrain.

This corridor looked vaguely familiar—not that all of them didn't. Seeing the amorous carnage that was the explosion of Matt's and Mello's long-simmering tension had pretty much obliterated everything else in his head, and that included the mental map he'd been sketching as he went.

By some stroke of dumb luck, or perhaps by the intervention of an angel who had finally had enough of the suffering and incompetence, Light noticed a fairly singular suit of armor that he'd seen before—and, just beyond it, the door with the border of faint yellow lamplight.

Mello, strutting more steadily now, paused to hike up his skirt.

"_Jesus_!" Light howled, slamming his hands over his eyes so vehemently that he saw stars. "_Warn_ a man before you do that!"

"You know you like it," Mello replied calmly.

Light peeked through his fingers. Mello had removed a switchblade from a small holster on his garter and was fixing his skirt again (at which advent Matt looked slightly disappointed). He flicked the knife open, candlelight gleaming on the polished steel.

"The only reason you brought that thing was so that you could do that," Light muttered. "Wasn't it?"

Mello flashed him a grin brighter than the knife, twirling the latter expertly. "I don't know what you mean, Infrared," he replied blithely. "I was under the impression that everybody keeps their weapons inside their clothes until they need them."

Smacking yourself vigorously in the forehead, as Light soon learned, hurt more than the movies would have you believe.

Mello sashayed over to the door, spun his knife ostentatiously once more, and then wedged the blade in the crack as if it was a credit card employed by a particularly talented Hollywood protagonist. After a bit of wheedling and some dexterous manipulation, the mechanism gave.

Light blinked. "My God," he said blankly. "You _are_ a Bond girl."

"Mello Drama," the blond shot back effortlessly, twisting the doorknob. "Can I call you James?"

Mello stepped into the room, and Light followed, Matt at his heels. The chamber in question was, as they discovered, a well-furnished bedroom, lavishly decorated in white—lacy white curtains fluttered at the open window as the wind breathed through the screen, similar sheets draped idly about the four-poster bed, there were white roses in a white vase on the nightstand, and a thick down comforter of the same plain color spread its rumpled bulk over the mattress.

There was a particularly protrusive lump on the far side of the bed, visible where the drapes had been pushed aside. This lump was possessed of a great deal of hair in loose curls just as pale as the décor.

Mello was halfway across the room by the time Light had completed the comprehension stage.

"Near, you little bastard," he was hissing, "if you're dead, I'm going to kick your little white ass _so_ hard—"

Light hastened after him, dodging around the foot of the bed, somewhat concerned about the welfare of their discovery. Even as he arrived, however, Mello placed an oddly careful hand on a narrow, white-pajama-clad shoulder and shook gently. Faint furrows appeared on a porcelain forehead, and a tiny murmur escaped almost reluctantly from between pale pink lips.

"C'mon, Near, you stupid shit," Mello whispered, touching one of the boy's colorless cheeks. Dark purple crescents bruised them beneath his eyes. "Don't gimme that."

White eyelids weighted with thick black lashes rose partway, and Light glimpsed irises of an icy gray not at all unlike L's.

He had a moment of terror at the prospect of the pedophilic connotations of the comparison, but he snapped out of it.

Near gazed hazily at Mello.

"What're you doing here?" he mumbled, shifting to raise a delicate white hand and applying it to the task of rubbing blearily at his eyes.

"Saving your pajama-covered ass, stupid," Mello responded, grinning.

"Nnnm." Near rolled partway over and tugged the pillow closer. "Five more minutes."

"No more minutes, Robot Boy," Matt put in. "We've got to go find L and get out of here before B pulls any crazy stunts, okay?"

Near mumbled into the pillow again. Matt and Mello looked expectantly at Light.

"What?" he asked.

Then he figured it out.

"God damn it, guys," he sighed, but he moved forward and slipped one arm under Near's shoulders and the other beneath the boy's knees anyway.

Seemingly instinctively, Near curled close against Light's chest, folding smaller in the wrinkled cotton pajamas. He wasn't very heavy.

They fled the room, Mello drawing the door shut behind them. He nudged Matt. "Call L," he ordered, and, nodding, Matt delved a hand into his pocket.

"He didn't pick up earlier," Light warned.

They stopped short, leaving him to walk two more steps before he managed to convince his feet to halt their trajectory.

"Why didn't you say that before?" Mello demanded.

"Maybe I was distracted by your _making out all over everything_," Light fired back.

"Shit," Mello muttered, motioning to Matt more insistently now. "Try him."

L was Matt's second speed-dial. It didn't take a Wammy Kid to figure out who was the first.

The phone rang. Then it rang again. And again.

"No dice," Matt reported unnecessarily.

"Son of a _bitch_," Mello concluded through a scowl. "Let's haul some ass, kids. Which way did you say he went?"

"The way I didn't go," Light informed him, starting to lead the way. "Towards the ruined wing."

The boys trailed him, faces grim. Mello was muttering vindictively again, too low for Light to hear.

"How many languages can you say 'shit' in?" Matt asked absently.

Mello smirked humorlessly. "At least five more," he answered.

—

L was getting faster and faster at picking the locks on the various doors. The necessity brought hundreds of hours of practice back in a rush.

Which was good, since there were more doors in this hall than thoughts in his head, and that was no small tally.

Yanking his aggravating dress, which was trailing quite absurdly, free of another snag on a statue's base, he moved to the next door and tried the handle.

Locked, of course. Sighing, he applied the pin and the pick. Near had to be here _somewhere_. He set his jaw. He'd find him. Wherever B had hidden him, in whatever dark corner the failure had buried the success—L would find him. The one thing B hadn't learned from the man he called his idol was how to transmute madness into genius.

It was a fine line and a precarious one. Such was the tightrope L walked daily—and that, unfortunately, never got any easier.

The more L Lawliet found out about people, the more they horrified him. Justice was a pipe dream that let out into the sewer.

Shit.

The lock gave, and L turned the knob cautiously and peered inside, lifting the veil to squint into the dark.

Nothing.

Again.

L locked the door from the inside and eased it closed. He'd never learned how to un-pick locks, which, thinking about it, was a monumental oversight.

Was it even possible to un-pick a lock? He liked to think that everything had a place and could eventually be returned to it, but even he recognized the naïveté of that world view.

It helped that the naïveté stood out like a sore thumb painted neon orange and placed under a black-light.

L reoriented himself according to the coat of arms on one wall (it certainly wasn't B's—but then, B had always derived a demonic glee from imitation, particularly the usurpation of others' identities) and the immense tapestry depicting a hunting scene on the opposite one. The corridor seemed to extend endlessly, and if he ever lost track of which doors he'd tried, he would probably starve to death in this miserable, red-carpeted labyrinth.

He _knew_ he should have brought some sugar cubes.

He heard thick cloth huff through the dense air of the hall, but there wasn't time to turn before a firm hand closed about the back of his collar and jerked him into the vast dark hole that had opened up behind the tapestry.


	29. The Cop Way

_Author's Note: lol F-bomb lol._

_Again, not perfectly chronological for the purposes of suspense. :)  
_

* * *

XXIX. The Cop Way

Matt was alternately trying to figure out what exactly Near had been drugged with (though he supposed it didn't matter, so long as it wasn't fatal or permanently damaging) and dialing L's phone over and over, all while striding along after Light, the rich carpet muffling their steps.

Looked like he was getting his multitasking marathon after all.

"I think it's this way," Light called over his shoulder, leading the way past a curving stair that gave Matt a glimpse of the party, which was in full swing by now. The jubilant swell of the orchestra's efforts dogged them momentarily, dwindling as they continued down the hall and fading again into the silence that stretched between fits of guttering from the candles. Matt chewed his lip and listened to the phone ring.

"If you were B," Light began, "where would you hide?"

"In a black hole," Mello snapped. "Or an operative garbage disposal."

Near's sock-feet bobbed as Light glanced around a corner. "Fair enough," he decided. "Where would you hide L?"

"Somewhere no one would find him," Mello muttered.

Light shot him a Look. "You're really not helping," he sniffed. "We have to do this systematically."

Matt pushed his glasses up his nose. Going goggle-less was taxing, and the stress wasn't helping.

…though he _had_ gotten to make out with Mello twice, which wasn't too shabby at all for an evening of chaos.

"Oh," Mello snarled, "let me play Mr. Policeman, too, Yagami. I'll pretend like I've got an investment in this just like you."

Light spun so fast that the wind blew Near's hair off of his forehead.

"_Pretend I have an investment_?" he repeated, his dark eyes narrowing to slits. "Is that what you think, Mello? You think I could live with L for months, work with him for months, look at him every morning and bid him goodnight at the end of every day knowing full well he wasn't going to sleep—you think I could have him in my life that long and _not have an investment_?"

Matt skirted around them, avoiding their matching incinerating Death Glares, and stood on his toes, trying to figure out what he might be seeing.

"I think you're a _cop_, Yagami," Mello returned, voice climbing the register towards a shout. "I think you're a cop first, and I think you'll always be a cop, and I think you'll always try to understand things the _cop_ way. I think you look at L like some sort of training exercise you can set the curve on—"

"Are you blind?" Light yelled back, presumably having forgotten that Near was attempting to sleep. "Have you even _seen_—how—"

"Guys," Matt said.

"How _what_?" Mello sneered, lip curling. "How much you _love_ him? You're not worth the dirt on the soles of his feet—"

"_Guys_," Matt repeated, louder.

"You have no _idea_—"

Matt took a deep breath, readied his diaphragm, and then made use of it:

"_You stupid fucking idiots; will you look over here_?"

There was a weighty pause, and then they both blinked at him.

He pointed wordlessly to the bobby pin, torque wrench, and black clutch purse on the floor. The lattermost item was vibrating softly as he called the phone nestled inside it.

"Oh, snap," Mello managed.

Light came closer to examine the objects strewn across the carpet.

"He dropped them," he muttered, his eyes flickering from one item to the next. "But not to leave them there. He was moving backwards—pulled backwards—" He looked up at the intricate tapestry on the wall.

Tentatively, Matt went over and drew the tapestry a little bit aside. He poked his head in.

"There's a giant hole," he announced meekly, his voice echoing, probably just to spite him. "Like, a huge passageway that goes off somewhere."

"Lead the way, Matt," Light told him. "Mello, could you grab L's things and bring them? I don't know if we'll be coming back."

There was a pause.

"Coming back _here_," Light specified.

"Right," Mello muttered.

It was actually kind of nice to have a fuzz-man ordering you around. At the least, it took the authority out of Matt's unsteady hands.

Matt held up the tapestry—which was tough; damn thing weighed a _ton_—for Light and Near and then for Mello. When they were all accounted for, he let it fall, and the darkness consumed them.

Matt pulled out his lighter and ground the wheel with his thumb. A small orange flame popped up cheerfully.

"Thank you for smoking," Light said, his faint smile looking slightly ghoulish.

"Har," Mello said.

—

L was not feeling optimistic now either.

He tumbled into the passageway, the tapestry flapping dully into place again. The stones of the floor bruised his knees and the palms of his hands where he caught himself, but the gloves saved him a set of scrapes, and he had his windpipe back.

For the moment, at least.

A candle's flame broke the blackness around him, isolated and inadequate. Faintly, from below, it half-illuminated a face he recognized—or a face he _could_ recognize, beneath the subtle scarring encircling the neck, climbing greedily up both cheeks, reaching for the beautiful-terrible crimson eyes.

They danced gleefully in the fickle orange grasp of the flame. Of course they did, L realized bitterly. Of course B derived a familiar twisted joy from seeing L trapped, found, forced onto his hands and knees. Bowing.

Throat tight with anger now, he gathered himself to his feet, summoning all the dignity he could muster.

Between the ridiculous dress, the slipping shawl, and the skewed veil, it wasn't much, but the shreds of his pride were better than nothing at all.

"Well-done," he said quietly. "You finally won."

B didn't seem to be listening. He held the candle out at arm's length, looking mystified.

"Has anyone ever told you," he asked, his voice hoarser and deeper than L remembered but undeniably that of the boy they'd failed, "that you look really good in a dress?"

L blinked. "Not… in so many words…"

"Hmm," B replied.

L wasn't sure he liked the sound of that.

Actually, he was quite sure that he didn't; this was no time for polite ambiguity. If anything, it was a time for panicking and running in the other direction.

Before he could realize this halfhearted plan, B had taken his wrist almost gently and commenced pulling him down the passage. The tiny flame coughed harshly as they moved, buffeted by the close air, and L stumbled in—and accordingly promptly abandoned—his slippers. The wretched things were much too close about his feet anyway, and the more impediments he could shed, the better.

He didn't know what was going to happen, but he'd be ready.

As the passage unfurled before them, endless stones blurring into being at the edges of the candle's reach, B glanced over his shoulder at intervals, his fingers tightening about L's wrist, as if to confirm that his prize still trailed behind him. The smile that the affirmation prompted was eerier still in the midst of the ambiance. L felt B's thumb slide over the back of his hand and steeled himself against a shudder.

The stone corridor ejected them into a different hall almost indistinguishable from the one they'd left. In fact, as L noticed out of the corner of his eye, the tapestry here was virtually identical to the first—likely as a way of identifying which ornaments concealed secret tunnels.

Sharper inspection permitted L to notice that this hall wasn't quite like its predecessor—there were cracks on the ceiling, and dust eddied in secluded corners.

"The ruined wing, I presume?" he inquired flatly.

B's grin spread with a feral gleam. "Very good," he commended, tugging L towards an elaborate set of double doors at the end of the hallway. "It's remarkable what a bit of well-placed rubble can convey. The only thing the wrecking ball really touched was the tower."

The squeal of hinges ushered them into a sitting room all in mahogany and red velvet. L's stomach clenched. No, he didn't like this at all.

B peeled off the veil and tossed it to the floor, released his hostage, shut the doors, and then considered L pensively, touching a fingertip to his lips. L tried not to seethe. Apparently the great pretender couldn't shake his finest act.

"Won't you sit?" B asked kindly, red eyes shining. Stiffly, L obliged, taking the opportunity to examine his resurrected nemesis for the first time in detail. B was dressed simply in black slacks and a white shirt, and his ragged hair was slightly shorter than his model's.

Additionally, his posture was too decent by half.

"Tea?" B went on, motioning eloquently to the laden silver tray on the table by the armchair L had selected.

"Might we just skip to the sugar cubes?" L replied coldly, his hands folded demurely in his lap to hide their trembling.

Still smiling bemusedly—or, as Matt would have noted, B-musedly—the House's fallen angel strolled to the table, plucked the jar of jam from amongst its articles, removed the lid, and delved his finger into the contents.

Before L could speak, B had moved with dizzying dexterity, one firm-fingered hand curled around L's shoulder, the other hovering, reddened index finger extended, inches from his chin.

"A craving, perhaps?" B prompted softly, his impossible eyes a perfect match for the glaze of color oozing downward over his knuckles. His voice dropped to a whisper, and he leaned in to press his fingertip to L's bottom lip, tracing the curve of it slowly. "That I can understand…"

Strawberry. Strawberry jam.

The _bastard_—

"What do you intend to do now?" L prompted, fighting the urge to grit his teeth.

"Do you know what dogs do when they finally catch the car?" B asked, his breath warm and wet on L's cheek.

L could see the stretching of the corpse-white skin where it had knitted into a thousand tiny scars along his captor's jaw. "I don't think they would know what to do," he responded levelly.

"Why don't we find out?" B inquired.

In truth, L could think of a vast collection of reasons why they shouldn't, but he bit his tongue as B moved closer still.

Scarlet eyes danced, twin windows to a maddening hell.

"Why don't you resist?" B murmured.

L hated the pressure of the creature's finger, detested the smooth edge of his fingernail, deplored the inescapability of them both—

"Because I imagine," he answered frostily, his hands clasped so tightly that they shook, "that you've attached a safeguard of some sort to Near, likely a small explosive, to be detonated remotely should I protest too violently."

B paused. "That's brilliant," he said.

L stared, completely forgetting the distinctly creepy finger at his lips for a long moment.

"You mean you _haven't_?" he demanded.

B smiled, bashfully this time.

For the first time, L smiled back—because he was about to give the phrase "violent protest" an entirely new meaning.


	30. Glorious, Victorious

_Author's Note: This chapter makes this the longest fic I have ever written. As in, ever. Having a thirtieth chapter is also new. Hot damn! 8D_

_I had the phrase "Glorious, victorious" in my head and only upon researching discovered that it was from the official school _drinking_ song… which explains why it was on the fraternity and sorority shirts this year… XD_

_Okay, couple notes! One: Delay in review replies is because I'm at Eltea's, and I'd rather talk to her than to you. ...don't take it personally; everyone in my life gets that treatment. XD Also, we'll probably make up stuff for the sequel. 8D_

_Two: B didn't molest Near, all right? It wouldn't fit the tone of this fic at all, and it certainly wouldn't fit the rating. O_o_

_Three: This isn't the last chapter. There's one more. Everyone started assuming it was thirty total, and I was like, "What?" XD_

_NOW GO. ...I got four and a half hours of sleep last night. XD_

* * *

XXX. Glorious, Victorious

Light had assumed that Near would seem to get heavier as they went along, but he didn't even notice the dead weight (he cringed) in his arms—his brain could apparently only process a limited quantity of physical inputs, and the beating of the blood in his ears, the slamming of his heart against his ribs, and the grating of the breaths fighting their way free of his throat were monopolizing its capacity for feeling.

So he half-rushed, half-ran after Matt in the round aura of the little lighter, his heartbeat performing an impressive drum solo, and gave himself over into the hands of fervent hope.

Matt shoved past another tapestry and held it aside, allowing Light and Mello to pass through and step down into another hallway, the same crimson carpet buoying their feet. Near shifted in Light's arms, pale fingers rustling against his vest, seeking purchase. He gave a little sigh.

"Come on," Matt insisted, striding, shoulders tensed, towards a set of double doors behind which indistinguishable voices mumbled. "This is it. Has to be."

They clustered by the door, Light with his burden, Matt with his fists clenched, Mello with L's shoes and bag in his right hand, brandishing the switchblade with his left, his face dark. Somehow—Light wasn't sure what minor deity to credit with this particular miracle—the makeup made his scowl look even scarier. His eyes blazed emerald from the wells of the dark brown shadow that swept his lids.

"Let's do it," Mello muttered.

Matt shoved the doors open, and they burst into the room, drawing great, simultaneous breaths for an ear-splitting collective shout—

And paused.

Even as they gained their bearings in the new environment, they saw the room's occupants. L was curled in an overstuffed armchair, and a spindly, spidery man with unkempt jet-black hair and startling eyes the same shade as the chair's cushions bent over him, one hand restraining L's arm, the other flirting with the detective's mouth.

Light was going to make that little son of a bitch eat those fingers of his. He didn't look so tough.

Before Light could articulate his threat, L planted both bare feet on the would-be molester's chest and pushed with all of his might.

If it had been anything but a would-be L-molester, Light would have felt sorry for the poor fool—who went flying, the table toppling as he collided with it, tea implements scattering with hollow clangs and the tinkling of breaking ceramics. Light knew how much that maneuver hurt.

Cursing impressively even by Light's standards—even by _Mello's _standards—B scrambled to his feet, but L wasn't finished yet.

L hitched his skirt up past his knees, fisting the fabric in both hands, and executed an impossibly smooth whirling kick, first with one leg, then putting his weight on it to raise the other, his left foot hitting B's chest squarely, his right following up with an absolutely vicious blow to the jaw.

The motion was seamless, flawless, and brutally effective.

…and way sexier than it should have been.

Light risked a quick glance downward to make sure he hadn't drooled on Near's face.

His skirts unfurling about his ankles again, L swooped down to grab B by his collar and haul the confounded crazy up until the man was level with his steel-edged glare.

"Naomi Misora," he hissed, "sends her regards."

B ignored him, looking interestedly at the newcomers.

"I guess we know what B stands for," Matt remarked. "'L's Bitch.'"

Startled, L dropped his prey. B crumpled to the floor, sitting up to grin at Matt. There wasn't much sanity in that grin.

"My heavens, they grow up fast," he remarked.

Light didn't know what B's heaven would entail and didn't want to. The associated concept of this monster's hell was downright mortifying.

B turned to Mello, smirking. "I always suspected you were actually female," he noted.

Mello went livid, and his eyes flashed.

Light hadn't realized that really _happened_.

"I always suspected you should save your shit for when I don't have a knife, reject," Mello growled.

B shrugged unconcernedly, and then he looked to the last of the arrivals.

He smiled.

"Hello, Light," he said.

Sourly, Light wished he had something to throw.

Other than Near, that was, the hurling of whom would have made all of their efforts pretty useless.

As Light strove to think of a scathing reply, he realized that the greatest insult he could inflict would be failing to react.

So, for a moment, he smiled distractedly at B, and then he focused his full attention on L, whom the commotion had rendered an exquisite statue, his shawl dangling from one hand. Light's notice seemed to spur him into motion, and he crossed the room to join them by the door.

It was hard to tell with the carpet, but—

"Are your feet bleeding?" Light asked.

L glanced down at them, wriggling his toes, which were just slightly visible protruding from under the hem of his skirt. "Apparently so," he answered.

Given the state of the tea set—that was, shattered on the floor—Light supposed it wasn't too surprising. Sure enough, blood gleamed on a few of the porcelain shards where they reared like jagged teeth from the carpet.

"I could carry you," Light offered. "Matt could carry Near."

Mello wrinkled his nose. "Save it for the honeymoon, Romeo."

"I can walk, Light-kun," L reported. "Though perhaps Mello-kun might return my shoes before I try to tackle the gravel on the drive…"

—

Unsurprisingly, the majority of the partygoers took notice when the Wammy's crew sauntered into the dining room again, L down a veil and Light up a white-haired kid. There was a long silence, and then Falstaff raised his champagne flute towards them.

"Quite the expedition!" he called.

Matt was going to punch that guy out. He really was. And then he was going to use his fat belly for a trampoline.

The crowd parted for them, possibly fearing that widespread dishevelment and the acquisition of albino children might be contagious, and Light led the way across the room, head high, back straight, his pace brisk but unhurried. He nodded cordially to the most shameless of the onlookers, who quickly shut their mouths and averted their eyes.

Matt frowned as they went to pass Falstaff, who was still grinning broadly.

"Going so soon?" he inquired cheerfully.

"And sooner," Mello replied, gliding over to him. He looked up at the portly man through his thick eyelashes. "And there's something I should tell you, John."

Falstaff's face lit up. "Is there?"

Mello stood on his toes, kissed Falstaff on the cheek, and then started for the door, offering a parting comment over one shapely shoulder.

"I'm a boy," he called.

Falstaff's champagne glass shattered on the floor, and it looked like the man might have dislocated his jaw.

Mello grinned and waved coyly.

Matt smiled so hard his face hurt.

They skipped down the front steps and hastened to the car. Light accompanied L in the backseat this time, sliding Near into the middle seat and buckling the lap-belt around him. Near mumbled a little, drooped, and then snuggled up with Light's arm contentedly.

Mello hopped into the passenger seat and glanced towards the door. "Hurry up, Matty," he said. "He might have flying monkeys."

"They might be after your ruby stilettos," Matt agreed, cursorily checking his mirrors and somewhat unnecessarily revving the engine. "Let's hit the road, chicos."

Corners were no match for Matt's steering, and his foot on the accelerator devoured the straightaways. He wished he was wearing his goggles; they would have complemented the roar of the engine and the howl of the wind far better than the pansy glasses he had on.

Light was trying and failing to convince a softly-breathing Near to relinquish his arm. "Where'd you learn to drive a getaway car like this?" he asked.

Matt grinned. "Grand Theft Auto?" he hazarded.

Light made a discontented noise. "After all that," he managed, "we're still going to die."

—

Mello's feet ached like a tooth cavity—and Mello had plentiful experience with those.

That decided it. He was never wearing stilettos again. Maybe some nice pumps…

There was a knock at the door. Mello glanced up from burying the sartorial evidence in the remotest corner of the dresser. He wasn't making much noise, and he'd left the lights off for the purpose of secrecy—it could only be someone who would know where he'd be at a time like this.

And someone who had every right to walk right in, which Matt accordingly proceeded to do.

"Near's sleeping up in the infirmary," Matt reported. "They managed to detach him without having to amputate Light's arm after all."

Mello shoved his hands in his pockets—there were _some_ advantages to non-leather pants. "Cool," he said. "Do they know when he'll be waking up?"

Matt shrugged. "Soon, probably."

"Cool," Mello repeated, looking at the strips of moonlight smeared across the floor.

It was quiet for a moment, and then he mustered up the guts.

"Matt?" he prompted, playing cool against the insidious uncertainty slithering aimlessly in the back of his mind. "You still want me as a guy, right?"

Matt shut the door, drew in close, and took Mello's face gently in both hands.

"You bet your androgynous ass I do," he said.

* * *

_A/N: Just so that I don't have to answer the same question more than once—B basically let them go because they'd rightfully won. I think he plays fair like that._

_But he'll be back._

…_or _B_ back, amirite? XD_


	31. Epic–Logue

_Author's Note: Well, this is it. And what a batshit-crazy ride it has been, my friends._

_I was going to write a full-out sequel, but then I realized that that would be virtually impossible and would probably result in more agony than success. So instead, at Eltea's brilliant suggestion, since there's no way I could get this incarnation of the universe out of my head after all this, I aim to write smaller, partly-connected mysteries—the further adventures, in bite-sized pieces. None of this sixty-thousand words madness. XD_

_So… yeah! I hope you had as much fun as I did, and thanks very much for humoring me this long. ;) Thank you all__: the hardcore fans, the lurkers, the people I__'ve pissed off with snarky review replies, the people I__'ve befriended with them__—all of you. Everybody who was here and did this with me; everyone who was a part of it. :)  
_

_Also… I raided the Wammy's Stock for this chapter. They belong to Alien ABC's, too, 'cause we share them. :D (Uhh, check out her fics, by the way, because they__'re absolutely amazing, and I don__'t say that lightly.)  
_

* * *

XXXI. Epic-Logue

Light's grip tightened. He considered the panorama offered by his vantage point atop the hill, casting his gaze over the patches of arid brown and verdant green that battled for possession of the rolling landscape, and peered suspiciously at the distant structures. Slowly and cautiously he moved forward, boots crunching on the dry ground, scouring the scene. It was far too quiet for comfort, and he hefted his gun, trying to take assurance in its bulk, turning in an uncertain half-circle to scan his surroundings one more time. He drew in a breath. Maybe it was safe after a—

Blood sprayed, and then he was watching his body crumpling, the better to sprawl in the dirt.

A helpful update appeared in the bottom corner of his screen: _Quikslvr sniped you_, it explained obligingly.

"_Damn_ it!" Light cried. Disgusted, he tossed the controller to the floor and raked both hands through his hair. "This game is _impossible_."

Quicksilver shrugged absently, her thumbs darting over buttons and little joysticks, every bit as fluid as the source of her moniker. "Maybe you just suck."

"Maybe I just don't play six hours a day like you do," he shot back, with rather better aim and accuracy than those of his on-screen incarnation.

Quicksilver made a face without looking away from her section of the screen. They'd staged a coup of the playroom for their Halo tournament, which entailed hijacking the big television on the leftward wall, dragging in as many mismatched cushions and beanbag chairs as they could find, and spreading out a truly inspiring smorgasbord of snack food.

"Six hours a day would cut into my raiding time on WoW," she informed him stiffly. "It's three and a half, tops."

Light muttered a little and watched the last few seconds run down on the timer. The round was over, and he'd gotten his ass handed to him on a silver platter, garnished with a hell of a lot of trash talk.

As Matt had explained before they'd begun, there were going to be three rounds in total—the first pitting L, Light, Near, and Quicksilver, a slim girl with short dark hair who was wearing a massive tee-shirt and cut-off jean shorts, against each other in a free-for-all. The second round would do the same for Matt, Mello, Alex of the Rubik's Cube, and Cal and his stuffed tiger mascot, and the third round was for Kat, Fiona, Fiona's second-in-command June, and Laurel, a small girl with her black hair in a bowl-cut who sported tremendous coke-bottle glasses and an extremely solemn expression. The four individuals with the highest body counts would advance to the finals, where they would duke it out for… well, Matt hadn't specified, but that wasn't the point.

Linda had bowed out of the competition, but she was sitting by the table, which was overflowing with food, and doodling Master Chiefs in her sketchbook. As the scores came up on the screen (and as Light groaned; even _Near_ had made short work of him), she jotted them down so that no one could lie about them later.

…Light had to admit that he might have been tempted otherwise.

L released his controller from an unsurprisingly odd grip—he'd set it on his knees and manipulated the buttons from the top, rather than holding the base like everyone else—that hadn't stopped him from beating Light by a reasonable margin. He tilted his head. "Well," he decided. "That was enlightening." He glanced at Near, who had proved to be extremely bloodthirsty despite his ostensible innocence. "Do you play often, Near-kun?"

Near shrugged, setting his controller aside. "Only when Matt's bored and Mello's busy," he answered. "But video games function very much like remote control cars, except of course that they're considerably more sophisticated."

"Snack break," Matt announced. "Don't touch the cheesecake, or L will snipe you faster than you can say 'Keep that shit in the game.'"

"Come now, Matt-kun," L remarked, unfolding to his bandaged feet and moving towards the table, "it wouldn't take _that_ long."

Light followed, slipping his arms around L's waist from behind once cheesecake had been acquired, since that particular advent indicated that all was well with the world. He set his chin on L's shoulder, their hair mingling, and made sure to lick L's fingers somewhat suggestively when his dashing detective fed him a strawberry.

L didn't seem to have any objections.

Mello was crunching his way through a chocolate bar, which Light found slightly remarkable, given that milk chocolate didn't usually _crunch_, per se. Then again, it probably required some serious magical skills to fit into the pants that Mello was wearing, and who knew how far those talents might extend?

Onomatopoeias aside, Mello seemed to be sizing up his competition, eyeing his prospective opponents mistrustfully.

Light wasn't sure which fearsome combatant was more intimidating—the boy whose fingers were whirling about the Cube to finish it in record time, or the one brushing cookie crumbs out of his tiger's fur.

Apparently Near was thinking along the same lines.

"Worried, Mello?" he asked innocently, twisting a finger in his hair.

Mello scowled. "Worried that my thumbs'll get tired from all the ownage I'm going to have to inflict," he responded.

"Yes," Near mused. "That would explain why your finger is twitching where the trigger button would be."

Mello sputtered.

Light stared. "Is he always like this?" he inquired dazedly.

Matt grinned. "Usually worse," he noted. "He must still be convalescing if Mello's got a fighting chance."

"And here I was," Light sighed, "thinking that he was a nice, sweet, slightly clingy kid in white…"

L smiled. "That, Light-kun," he replied, "wouldn't be very Extraordinary."

Light smiled back mischievously. "You've got an extraordinary smear of chocolate on your mouth," he declared.

L raised a hand, but Light caught it.

"Allow me," he offered.

So maybe it was a little bit of a cliché to kiss nonexistent food off of him. Clichés were only overused in the first place because people liked them so much.

L drew back, slightly startled, at the first squeal.

Fiona was wielding her cell-phone camera, and others were moving to follow suit.

"Don't stop!" she pleaded.

L looked so disconcerted that Light couldn't help but start stroking his hair.

"I would rather not be documented, Fiona-chan," L told her gently.

"I'm not going to distribute them!" Fiona protested. "They're for my personal use only!"

"Her personal shrine," Linda remarked dryly.

Near looked pointedly over her shoulder, and she clutched her sketchbook to her chest, blushing slightly.

"Shut up," she said.

"I haven't said anything," Near replied blithely, toying with his hair.

"Really!" Fiona persisted, sticking out her bottom lip. "It won't hurt anybody."

L shifted uncertainly. "I…"

Light set a finger under his chin. "Your lack of creativity, L," he commented, "is disheartening."

Half a dozen cell-phone cameras made shutter noises as L smiled and drew him in again.

Light grinned as they separated and glanced at the assembled company. "Will that be all, paparazzi?" he inquired.

"Yes, it will," Matt decided, waving them all back, "because we're starting Round Two. Where's my fragmentation grenade fodder?"

Predictably, Matt made mincemeat of the competition, though Mello strove valiantly to keep up. When he was done embarrassing everyone, Matt called another snack break, and they all drifted back to the table. Light discovered the wonders of mini-donuts and realized that his life would be forever changed.

"Whoa!" Matt exclaimed through a cookie. "Mello! We made a bet, remember—?"

Mello blinked. "Did we?"

Matt nodded enthusiastically. "Five pounds towards chocolate, or five pounds towards video games." He turned to Near. "Were there any sketchy black vans at any point during your traumatic experience?"

Finger twisting in his hair, Near pondered the question a moment.

"No," he answered at last. "Though there was a very nice black Mercedes."

Matt looked triumphantly to Mello.

Stunningly, Mello kept his cool. He even smirked a little, arms folded across his chest. "Okay, Matty-Boy," he conceded. "Come with me a sec, and I'll get you your five pounds towards video games." Interested, Matt followed him from the room.

A few more minutes passed in consumption of baked goods before Kat glanced out the window and gasped.

"Guys!" she cried. "Guys, look! They really _are_ making out in the bushes this time!"

The screams were temporarily deafening, and then the room was practically empty.

"Good God," Light said blankly.

Kat turned from the window. Then she noticed the abandoned X-Box.

"Ooh," she remarked.

Contentedly she sat down at her controller and sent her pink-armored man strolling merrily around the arena, systematically killing her three absent competitors' characters repeatedly.

Light stared. "You little _cheat_," he said, grinning despite himself.

"You say 'cheat,'" she replied, "I say 'opportunist.'"

"Quite the investment you've all got in this whole Matt and Mello drama," Light observed to L. "Even Laurel went."

Amusement flitted across L's features and settled there. "Laurel," he explained, "enjoys making movies."

Kat paused in the unmitigated carnage to glance at the only other female who remained in the room. "Oh, Linda," she prompted, "have you still got a copy of the Matt-Mello Makeout Betting Pool?"

"Of course," Linda replied, flipping through her sketchbook. "I keep it on the back cover."

A slow, small, utterly evil smile spread over Near's features.

"What are you so happy about?" Light asked bewilderedly.

Near blinked at him guilelessly, one finger rising to twirl itself in his hair. "Nothing," he said, a twitch of his lips betraying him. "Suffice to say… I believe I may be about to come into a great deal of money."


End file.
